The  Higher  Ministries 

of 

Recent  English  Poetry 


By  FRANK  W.  GUNSAULUS,  D.D. 


The  Higher  Ministries  of 
Recent  English  Poetry 

i2mo,  Cloth,  ^1.25  net 

The  Transfiguration  of  Christ 

i2mo,  Cloth,  ^i.oo  net 

Paths  to  the  City  of  God 
and  Other  Sermons 

i2mo.  Cloth,  ^1.25  net 

Paths  to  Power 

ji/i  edition,  i2mo,  Cloth,  ^1.25  net 


The  Higher  Ministries 
Recent  English  Poetry 


FRJNK  W.  G  UNSJUL  US,  D.  £>.,  LL.  D. 


"A  neiv  commandment,^^  said  tie  smiling  Muse, 
"  I gi-ve  my  darling  son,   Thou  shalt  not  preachy  "  — 
Luther,  Fox,  Behmen,  Sivedenborg,  greiv  pale. 
And,  on  the  instant,  rosier  clouds  upbore 
Hafiz  and  Shakespeare  -with  their  shining  choirs. 

— Emerson. 


I 


New    York      Chicago      Toronto 

Fleming  H.  Revel  I  Company 

London        and         Edinburgh 


Copyright,  1907,  by 
FLEMING  H.  REVELL  COMPANY 


New  York:  158  Fifth  Avenue 
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f /,  LIBRARY 

■7^3  UNIVERPITi'  OF  CALIFORNIA 

r,^  SANTA  BARBARA 


To  the  class  of  igoy 

Just  graduated  from  the 

Chicago  Theological  Seminary 

before  whose  members  these  lectures 

were  delivered, 

I  now  dedicate  them  with  every  prayer 

and  hope  which  happy  recollection 

and  sincere  love  may  inspire. 

Frank  W.  Gunsaulus. 


TJie  Lecture  Room  for  HomeleticSf 
May  lo,  igoi. 


CONTENTS 
I 

The    Literary   Phases  of  the   Re- 
ligious Problem  ...        9 

II 

Matthew  Arnold      .        .        •        .52 

III 

Alfred  Tennyson      .        •        .        .107 

IV 
Robert  Browning       ,        .        ,        .178 


The  letter  herewith  reproduced  in  facsimile 
marks  one  of  the  moments  in  Browning's  spirit- 
ual history  in  which  he  realized  the  comfort 
and  strength  of  a  faith  in  the  Life  Immortal. 
The  letter  was  generously  given  to  the  author 
of  this  book  by  his  friend,  Mr.  A.  C.  Bartlett. 


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The  Higher  Ministries  of 
Recent     English     Poetry 

INTRODUCTORY  LECTURE 

THE   LITERARY   PHASES   OF  THE  RELIG- 
IOUS  PROBLEM 

Next  to  religion,  poetry  is  the  most 
vital,  and,  at  the  same  time,  the  most  far- 
reaching  of  those  movements  of  the  hu- 
man soul  by  which  it  declares  its  deeps 
of  feeling  and  its  heights  of  aspiration. 
Verse  is  the  innocent  manifestation  of  the 
primal  music  of  humanity,  as  the  seer,  the 
Vates,  stands  with  man  and  the  mysteries 
which  surround  him.  Along  with  the 
smoking  altar  comes  the  ballad  of  the  re- 
motest savage ;  and  the  latest  child  of 
culture  begins  to  see  that  if  the  word 
minister  is  to  go  out  of  his  vocabulary, 
that  other  word  minstrel,  joined  with  it  in 
the  same  ancient  root,  will  perhaps  depart 
also.  The  Psalmist,  if  he  be  truly  such, 
is  as  much  a  poet  as  he  is  a  religionist. 
9 


10  The  Higher  Ministries 

These  relationships  of  poetry  and  rehg- 
ion  exist  because  of  the  part  which  im- 
agination and  feeHng  play  in  both.  In 
these  days,  when  it  is  hoped  that  devotion 
may  a  litttle  supplant  both  our  rationalistic 
scepticism  and  our  over-intellectual  dog- 
matism, we  hear  much  of  the  "  religious 
feeling"  ;  and  we  are  able  the  more  cer- 
tainly to  see  that  there  can  be  no  religion 
without  imagination  to  give  an  atmos- 
phere to  our  aspiration  and  to  furnish 
visions  under  which  hope  and  fear  may 
grow.  And  it  is  another  of  the  results  of 
the  critical  and  constructive  thinking  of 
our  time  that  poetry  appears  to  be  the  art 
by  which  things  are  felt,  seen  and  ex- 
pressed in  the  atmosphere  of  imagination. 

Nowhere  has  the  loftiest  ground  which 
the  human  spirit  knows  in  its  religion 
lifted  more  surely  into  sight  as  the  field 
for  true  poetry,  than  in  modern  England. 
Indeed,  the  choicest  garlands  which  have 
been  hung  about  the  rich  sacrifices  and 
holy  fanes,  and  the  most  exquisite  of  the 
flowers  which  have  been  plucked  by 
genius  to  deck  the  poet's  lyre,  have 
grown  upon  a  common  territory  and  ex- 
tracted their  fragrance  and  beauty  from  a 


Of  Recent  English  Poetry  11 

common  earth  and  atmosphere.  "  The 
more  I  reflect  on  the  conformation  of  the 
EngHsh  mind,  and  on  the  preeminence 
of  the  moral  being,  and  the  necessity  for 
regarding  nature  through  the  eyes  of  the 
moral  being,  from  first  to  last,"  says  Taine, 
**  the  more  clearly  do  I  arrive  at  an  under- 
standing of  the  strong  and  innumerable 
roots  of  that  serious  poem  which  is  here 
called  religion." 

Nothing  is  more  sure  to  reward  the 
minister's  study  than  his  becoming  ac- 
quainted with  these  "  strong  and  in- 
numerable roots  of  that  serious  poem 
which  is  called  religion,"  as  those  roots 
are  to  be  discovered  and  rightly  ap- 
preciated in  the  blossoms  of  poetical 
literature  which  have  done  so  much  to 
glorify  and  make  fragrant  the  air  which 
we  breathe  ;  his  studying  the  great  poems 
of  contemporary  English  bards,  with  ref- 
erence solely  to  what  of  light  and  leading 
they  may  offer  to  our  interesting  age  and 
finding,  if  possible,  the  special  messages 
that  they  may  bring,  which  infuse  the 
spirit  of  religion,  teach  the  beauty  of  holi- 
ness, impel  the  utterance  of  that  goodness 
from  within  us — the  speech  of  what  has 


12  The  Higher  Ministries 

too  often  gone  dumb  hitherto.  In  short, 
we  ought  to  acquire  what  riches  may  lie 
in  the  words  of  those  who  perhaps  only 
delight  us,  when,  but  for  our  lack  of  rev- 
erent appreciation,  they  might  inspire  and 
lead  us,  and,  having  handled  some  of  these 
treasures,  to  make  them  our  own.  Of 
course,  it  will  be  seen  at  once  that  this 
task  will  not  include  the  labours  of  the 
critic,  so  called,  nor  will  it  demand  the 
more  pleasing  efforts  of  a  biographer,  save 
in  the  mention  of  certain  personal  facts 
which  have  given  character  to  the  poetry 
which  is  treated.  It  is  not  ours  to  discuss 
the  question,  which  the  presence  and 
writings  of  such  differing  and  powerful 
men  as  Swinburne  and  Browning  have 
made  interesting,  as  to  whether  a  poet  is 
to  be  expected  to  have  a  moral  aim  and 
to  teach  the  truth  by  which  men  are  to 
form  their  lives ;  sufficient  it  is  for  us  to 
seek  to  learn  what  we  may  of  those,  who, 
like  Tennyson,  never  soar  so  high  as  when 
they  utter  the  notes  of  faith  ;  of  those  who, 
like  Arnold,  are  quite  as  Grecian  as  Swin- 
burne, and  who  yet  feel  that  the  greatest 
music  has  to  do  with  the  inner  life  of  the 
spirit,  or  of  those  who,  like    Browning, 


Of  Recent  English  Poetry  13 

have  seen  most  surely  into  both  the  flesh 
and  the  soul,  and  who,  in  many  ways, 
have  helped  us  to  utter  hope. 

"  Let  us  not  always  say, 
*  Spite  of  this  flesh  to-day, 
I  strove,  made   head,  gained  ground   upon  the 
whole  !  ' 

As  the  bird  wings  and  sings ; 
Let  us  cry  :    '  All  good  things 
Are  ours,  nor  soul  helps  flesh  more  now,  than  flesh 
helps  soul.'  " 

First  of  all,  then,  in  order  that  we  may 
discover  and  value  aright  the  real  contri- 
bution which  poetry  has  made  to  the  spir- 
itual powers  and  religious  knowledge  of 
our  day,  let  us  notice  the  forces  which 
dominated  and  worked  within  the  relig- 
ious atmosphere  more  than  a  generation 
since,  and  those  which  have  given  char- 
acter to  the  thoughts  and  feelings  and 
purposes  of  the  last  forty  years ;  let  us 
note  the  needs  which  then  lay  voiceless, 
and  soon  began  and  have  continued  to 
utter  their  cry  to  those  who  would  have 
man  realize  the  ideal  in  Christianity,  which 
has  been  called  "  looking  up  and  lifting 
up."  Surely,  we  shall  thus  be  able  the 
more  successfully  to  appreciate  the  lofty 


14  The  Higher  Ministries 

priesthood  of  those  who  speak — "true 
thoughts,  good  thoughts,  thoughts  fit  to 
treasure  up." 

Perhaps  the  most  suggestive  fact  in  the 
spiritual  Hfe  of  Englishmen  of  eighty  years 
ago,  so  far  as  that  life  was  taught  or  in- 
spired by  poetry,  was  the  evident  begin- 
ning of  the  dominance  of  the  influence  of 
Wordsworth  over  that  of  Byron.  Lord 
Jeffrey  had  long  before  angrily  said  of 
Wordsworth's  poetry :  "  This  will  never 
do"  ;  Shelley  had  avowed  that  his  imagi- 
nation was  as  capacious  as  a  pint  cup ; 
and  many  a  lesser  critic  had  announced 
how  impossible  it  is  to  extract  large  mean- 
ings out  of  small  things  ;  yet  the  steady 
flame  of  Wordsworth's  genius  lived  its 
quiet  life,  burning  amidst  much  which  yet 
seems  prosaic  enough  and  much  which 
even  yet  must  needs  wait  for  appreciation 
until  the  complete  triumph  of  the  greater 
spiritual  and  intellectual  forces  of  which 
Byron  knew  so  little  and  Wordsworth  so 
much  ;  and  at  the  death  of  the  Laureate, 
his  pure  light  was  already  beginning  to 
illumine  a  larger  area  than  that  which  had 
been  alternately  charmed  and  bewildered 
by  the  brilliant  Lord  Gordon.     Byron's 


Of  Recent  English  Poetry  15 

genius  had  no  power  of  generation ;  and 
quite  as  soon  as  the  mind  of  England  had 
exhausted  the  treasures  which  were  stored 
so  luxuriantly  and  carelessly  in  his  verses, 
it  was  found  that  there  were  no  sons  to 
continue  his  throne,  and  that  even  his 
imitators  had  mistaken  the  unhealthful 
sentimentalities  with  which  they  toyed 
for  evidences  of  a  noble  pedigree.  To 
the  age  preceding  a  John  Stuart  Mill,  a 
Charles  Darwin,  or  an  Ernest  Renan,  the 
fiery  glow  of  Byron's  genius  had  come 
with  overwhelming  visions  of  splendour, 
but  upon  his  often  prolix  rhymes  and 
brilliant  powerlessness,  it  was  sure  the 
dawn  would  come  to  walk  to  noonday, 
and  then  they  would  be  found  to  have 
been  greater  in  the  dim  but  spectral  even- 
ing, than  in  the  all-consuming  morning- 
tide.  For  Byron's  poetry  was  of  the  set- 
ting, while  Wordsworth's  was  of  the  rising 
sun. 

Byron  and  Wordsworth  both  stood  in 
the  remaining  eddy  of  that  revolution, 
wherein  went  whirling  to  final  destruction, 
as  it  seemed,  the  faiths,  political,  social 
and  religious,  upon  which  men  had  been 
leaning  for  so  long.     The  French  Revo- 


l6  The  Higher  Ministries 

lution  had  cast  them  both  loose  from 
these  revered  traditions.  Byron's  joy 
often  seems  to  shriek  with  laughter ;  be- 
neath the  rapture  of  Wordsworth's  lies  a 
solemn  calm.  With  their  political  preju- 
dices we  have  nothing  to  do,  but,  let  it  be 
noted,  that  after  the  Revolution  had  be- 
come unjustifiable  to  Wordsworth,  as  it 
was  politically  a  failure  to  Byron,  Byron's 
eyes  beheld,  in  its  massive  manifestations 
of  the  strength  of  humanity,  a  sphere  for 
the  exercise  of  that  fearful  individualism 
of  which  he  was  such  an  incarnation ; 
while  Wordsworth,  after  a  spiritual  ex- 
perience deep  as  his  soul,  though  taking 
a  strange  route,  wrote  the  noble  lines  of 
"The  Prelude."  Here  is  a  witness  of 
that  spiritual  vision  which  sent  its  glory 
throughout  his  entire  intellectual  life.  It 
is  the  record  of  a  faith  which  reaches  far 
into  the  doubts  of  to-day,  with  a  gift  of 
power — a  faith  in  the  spiritual,  eternal, 
and  true,  which  rescues  at  once  and  au- 
thenticates all  the  truths  of  both  individu- 
alism and  socialism,  by  its  consciousness 
of  God. 

"  And  I  have  felt 
A  presence  that  disturbs  me  with  the  joy 


Of  Recent  English  Poetry  17 

Of  elevated  thoughts ;  a  sense  sublime 
Of  something  far  more  deeply  interfused, 
Whose  dwelling  is  the  light  of  setting  suns, 
And  the  round  ocean,  and  the  living  air 
And  the  blue  sky,  and  in  the  mind  of  man ; 
A  motion  and  a  spirit,  that  impels 
All  thinking  things,  all  objects  of  all  thought, 
And  rolls  through  all  things." 

Shelley  has  sent  into  the  veins  of  our 
deepest  religious  life  a  far  more  fructify- 
ing impulse  than  Byron,  though  perhaps 
Byron  died  believing,  to  his  soul's  infinite 
harm,  that  the  orthodoxy  which  he  had 
been  taught  was  really  true,  and,  on  the 
other  hand,  Shelley  was  an  unbeliever 
who  wrote  upon  Mont  Blanc :  "  P.  B. 
Shelley,  Atheist."  Certainly  there  is 
something  very  impressive  in  the  fact 
that  he  who  has  written  most  profoundly 
in  the  spirit  of  the  gospel,  Robert  Brown- 
ing, has  said  that  he  thought  if  Shelley 
had  lived,  he  would  have  come  to  accept 
the  Christian  faith.  It  requires  but  a 
reading  of  the  words  of  Browning  on 
Shelley  to  find  how  far  into  the  richest 
poetical  nature  of  our  day  this  man's  in- 
fluence goes.  It  is  not  the  Shelley  of 
"  Queen  Mab,"  however,  but  the  Shelley 


l8  The  Higher  Ministries 

of  "Adonais"  and  ''The  Skylark."  It 
was  certain  that  if  Wordsworth  should 
prove  stronger  than  Byron,  to  the  most 
thoughtful  men  of  a  generation  ago, 
Shelley  would  live  more  powerfully  also 
in  their  life  and  thought.  Shelley  would 
have  occupied  this  relative  place,  even 
though  he  had  not  possessed  that  instinct 
which  enabled  him  easily  to  dream  and 
sing  with  the  largeness  and  lightness  of 
the  classic  bards,  or  that  pure  spirituality 
which  is  never  tarnished  as  it  touches 
earth  nor  ever  more  splendid  when  it 
soars  to  heaven,  or  that  genius  in  the 
rhythmic  possibilities  of  a  language  which 
is  as  sure-footed  as  it  is  swift  and  as  deli- 
cate as  it  is  strong,  or  that  devotion  to 
the  ideal  which  makes  him  the  psalmist, 
who,  at  the  shrine  of  beauty,  makes  his 
worship  lyrical  with  song.  Indeed,  even 
if  he  had  not  possessed  these,  Shelley 
would  stand  in  the  generation  of  our 
fathers,  just  where  Byron's  genius  began 
to  lose  its  grasp  upon  the  human  soul, 
and,  like  a  prophet  uttering  his  truth 
amidst  much  blasting  error,  though  with 
infinite  music,  he  would  look  forward  to 
a  time  with   its   Browning  to  write  "A 


Of  Recent  English  Poetry  19 

Christmas  Day  "  and  "  Paracelsus  "  ;  and 
to  say  of  Shelley  that  when  he  read  his 
words  he  seemed  to  have  found  "  an 
eagle's  feather." 

For  Shelley  is  the  poet  of  the  unsatis- 
fied. No  twentieth  century,  however 
weary  she  may  be  of  doubt  and  analysis, 
can  ever  go  back  to  the  eighteenth,  and 
avoid  the  protest  of  this  clear-eyed  soul, 
— a  soul  who  abides  at  the  gateway,  the 
type  of  the  yearning  spirit  pouring  forth 
his  lofty  expectations  in  exquisite  rhythm, 
uttering  his  pathetic  scorn  with  sweetest 
music,  the  very  incarnation  of  the  restless 
heart  and  thirsty  soul  which,  with  heated 
forehead,  utters  the  cry  of  the  human. 
No  one  for  the  satisfaction  of  the  soul 
would  go  back  into  the  years  which  he 
tasted,  as  he  sings  : 

"I  vowed  that  I  would  dedicate  my  powers 
To  thee  and  thine ;  have  I  not  kept  the  vow  ! 
With  beating  heart  and  streaming  eyes  even  now 
I  call  the  phantom  of  a  thousand  hours 
Each   from   his   voiceless   grave ;  they  have,  in 

visioned  bowers, 
Of  studious  zeal  or  love's  delight, 
But  watched  with  me  the  anxious  night : 
They  know  that  never  joy  illumined  my  brow 


20  The  Higher  Ministries 

Unlinked  with  hope  that  thou  would 'st  free 
This  world  from  its  dark  slavery, 
That  thou,  O  awful  Loveliness, 
Would' St  give  whate'er  these  words  cannot  ex- 
press." 

The  French  Revolution  had  touched 
his  world,  as  it  had  touched  that  of 
Wordsworth  and  Byron  ;  it  had  destroyed 
many  things  ;  it  had  left  man. 

"The  loathsome  mask  has  fallen,  the  man  re- 
mains 
Sceptreless,  free,  uncircumscribed,  but  man 
Equal,  unclassed,  tribeless,  and  nationless. 
Exempt  from  awe,  worship,  degree,  the  King 
Over  himself,  just,  gentle,  wise." 

And  for  man  Shelley  would  aspire,  though 
perchance  there  were  no  God ;  if  there 
were,  he  would  still  pray.  But  from  this 
atheism,  the  unsatisfied  gets  no  hope : 

"  Sweet   Heaven,    forgive  weak    thoughts !     If 

there  should  be 
No  God,   no   Heaven,    no  Earth,    in  the  void 

world, — 
The    wide,     gray,    lampless,    deep,    unpeopled 

world  —  !" 

So  the  restless  spirit  sang. 


Of  Recent  English  Poetry  21 

"The  only  wonderful  man  I  ever  knew," 
says  Wordsworth,  "  was  Coleridge." 
Passing  now  to  this  other  name,  the 
name  of  a  profoundly  differing  person- 
ality, we  are  not  yet  far  from  Shelley,  in 
the  attitude  which  the  eighteenth  century 
offered  for  the  great  problems  of  life. 
They  were  almost  as  little  satisfactory  to 
Coleridge  as  they  could  be  to  Shelley.  It 
is  with  Coleridge  that  we  pass  from  the 
influence  of  poetry,  at  the  beginning  of 
this  century,  to  that  of  religious  thought. 
For  the  reason  that  in  Coleridge,  the  poet 
was  easily  metamorphosed  into  the  re- 
ligious thinker,  he  affords  us  less  difficult 
passage.  Indeed,  his  poetry  was  never 
so  deeply  influential  as  his  prose,  in  creat- 
ing the  intellectual  and  spiritual  life  upon 
which  Tennyson's  artistic  lines  were  to 
fall,  or  in  enabling  the  singers  of  to-day 
to  lead  with  tuneful  harmony  the  doubt- 
ing or  stumbling  feet  which  had  been 
taught  by  the  minds  of  that  yesterday. 
Coleridge  felt  only  slightly  the  throes  of 
the  great  Revolution.  He  could  not, 
however,  resist  his  vision  of  Pantisocracy. 
"Strange  fancies,"  he  afterwards  said, 
"  and  as  vain  as  strange  !     Yet  to  the  in- 


22  The  Higher  Ministries 

tense  interest  and  impassioned  zeal,  which 
called  forth  and  strained  every  faculty  of 
my  intellect,  for  the  organization  and  de- 
fense of  this  scheme,  I  owe  much  of  what 
I,  at  present,  possess — my  clearest  insight 
into  the  nature  of  individual  man,  and  my 
most  comprehensive  views  of  his  social 
relations,  of  the  true  uses  of  trade  and 
commerce,  and  how  far  wealth  and  rel- 
ative power  of  nations  promote  and  im- 
pede their  welfare  and  inherent  strength." 
But  something  else  and  something  more 
precious  our  fathers  were  able  to  obtain 
from  Samuel  Taylor  Coleridge,  without 
some  understanding  of  which  we  can  never 
value  justly  the  voices  of  our  English 
bards.  Coleridge  was  to  bring  into 
English  thought,  as  it  would  concern  itself 
with  the  great  topics,  a  force  from  Ger- 
many, which,  under  the  management  of 
his  strong  spirit,  was  to  create  a  new 
epoch  in  Christian  England.  Of  course, 
with  the  metaphysics  and  technical  phil- 
osophy of  religion,  we  have  no  present 
concern,  but  it  would  be  quite  impossible 
either  to  estimate  the  forces  with  which 
any  modern  leader  of  humanity  has  to  do, 
or   to   see  aright  the  ruling  ideas  with 


of  Recent  English  Poetry  23 

which  most  of  our  truest  singers  inspire 
us,  without  noting  how,  not  only  as  the 
•rreator  of  England's  modern  criticism, 
but  as  a  student  of  religious  truth,  Cole- 
ridge influenced  the  age.  As  Browning's 
essay  on  Shelley  shows  how  that  fine  soul 
influences  a  spirit  so  unlike  his,  so  Car- 
lyle's  life  of  John  Sterling  will  indicate 
how  very  living  was  the  power  of  Cole- 
ridge's genius  upon  a  totally  dissimilar 
man.  Tennyson's  purest  song  in  "  In  Me- 
moriam  "  or  in  "  The  Idylls  of  the  King" 
cannot  be  fully  heard,  until  we  have 
learned  enough  of  Coleridge's  spirit  to 
feel  the  earnestness  of  that  invitation 
which  the  late  poet  once  gave  to  one  of 
the  finest  spirits  whom  Coleridge  had  in- 
fluenced, Frederick  Denison  Maurice. 

The  truth  is  that  the  time  had  come  for 
men  to  obtain  a  deeper  and  surer  hold 
upon  what  were  called  the  facts  of  religion 
than  that  which  they  had,  or  to  let  them 
go  entirely.  The  very  heterodoxy  of  the 
past  dissatisfied  Shelley ;  the  orthodoxy 
of  the  past  which  claimed  the  present, 
was  too  weak  for  Coleridge.  By  the  help 
of  the  genetic  men  in  Germany,  this 
English  thinker  was  able  in  that  hour  to 


14  The  Higher  Ministries 

do  great  service.  Take,  for  example,  the 
ideas  each  of  which  was  given,  as  the 
sine  qua  non  of  every  religious  person,  on 
the  inspiration  of  the  sacred  writings. 
Thoughtful  and  wide-minded  men,  like 
this  man,  felt  that  the  blind  devotion 
which  staked  its  life  upon  verbal  infal- 
libility and  literal  inspiration  was  sure  to 
suffer  defeat,  if  not  to  invite  the  wreck  of 
faith.  Religion  was  seen  to  be  independ- 
ent of  certain  traditions  of  the  past  as  to 
the  proper  reasons  for  believing  in  a  book 
which  contained  the  precious  story  of  the 
Christ.  Coleridge  would  not  depend  for 
evidence  of  the  divine  inspiration  of  the 
Bible  only  upon  the  tradition  which,  in 
many  instances,  modern  inquiry  had  al- 
ready begun  to  tear  to  pieces.  He  said 
of  the  Bible  :  "  I  take  up  this  work  with 
the  purpose  to  read  it  for  the  first  time  as  I 
should  read  any  other  work, — as  far,  at 
least,  as  I  can  or  dare.  For  I  neither  can 
nor  dare  throw  off  a  strong  and  awful 
prepossession  in  its  favour — certain  as  I 
am  that  a  large  part  of  the  light  and 
life,  in  and  by  which  I  see,  love,  and 
embrace  the  truths  and  the  strengths 
coorganized  into  a  living  body  of  faith, 


Of  Recent  English  Poetry  25 

and  knowledge  has  been  derived  to  me 
from  the  sacred  volume."  "  If  between 
this  Word — The  Word  that  was  in  the 
beginning — the  light  that  lighteth  every 
man  that  cometh  into  the  world — if 
between  this  Word  and  the  written 
letter,  I  shall  anywhere  seem  to  myself  to 
find  a  discrepancy,  I  will  not  conclude 
that  such  there  actually  is ;  nor,  on  the 
other  hand,  will  I  fall  under  the  condem- 
nation of  them  that  would  lie  for  God,  but, 
seek  as  I  may,  be  thankful  for  what  I  have, 
— and  wait." — "  In  the  Bible,  there  is  more 
that  finds  me  than  I  have  experienced  in 
all  other  books  put  together ;  the  words 
of  the  Bible  find  me  at  greater  depths  of 
my  being,  and  whatever  finds  me  brings 
with  it  an  irresistible  evidence  of  having 
proceeded  from  the  Holy  Spirit." 

Many  a  soul  has  had  his  Bible  saved 
to  him  and  has  seen  the  great  facts  of 
the  religious  life  entirely  secure  in  the 
midst  of  much  that  was  perishable,  by 
thus  being  the  remote  recipient  of  these 
ideas.  He  has  dared  to  be  inspired  by 
the  Bible — to  be  found  by  its  teaching  ; 
and  he  confesses  proofs  of  its  inspiration. 
But  Coleridge's  genius  carried  its  stirring 


26  The  Higher  Ministries 

influence  into  many  other  departments 
of  religious  thought.  He  contended 
earnestly  for  the  self-evidencing  nature 
of  revealed  religion.  To  historical  and 
miraculous  truth,  he  may  be  said  to  have 
assigned  a  secondary  place.  Grasping 
the  idea  of  the  Incarnation,  he  held  that 
miracles  were  the  needful  outcome  of  the 
great  fact ;  and  he  taught  that  the  adap- 
tation of  truth  to  the  moral  nature  con- 
stituted its  strongest  evidence.  "  He 
who  begins  by  loving  Christianity  better 
than  truth  will  proceed  by  loving  his  own 
sect  and  church  better  than  Christianity, 
and  end  in  loving  himself  better  than  all." 
The  air  men  breathed  seemed  freer  and 
more  healthful.  The  faith  of  the  ages 
did  not  falter  as  fearfully  in  the  presence 
of  rationalism,  though  the  rationalistic 
spirit  was  confessed.  Fantastic  assump- 
tions faded  out  of  sight.  The  church  as- 
sumed a  broader  function  and  was  seen 
to  have  more  lasting  foundations.  The 
day  of  reverent  criticism  for  every  page 
of  scripture  and  of  open  discussion  of 
every  topic  of  theology  was  welcomed. 
A  new  atmosphere  had  come. 

Let  us  stop  here  with  Shelley,  Cole- 


Of  Recent  English  Poetry  27 

ridge,  and  Wordsworth,  and  note  these 
facts : — that  each  was  influenced  by  the 
revolution  in  France ;  that  each  had 
dreams  of  that  perfect  humanity  of  which 
visions  came  over  the  storm  and  wreck  ; 
that  each  had  broken  in  some  way  with 
the  prevalent  modes  of  thought  and  the 
opinions  of  the  age  preceding  ;  to  each, 
neither  the  views  which  scepticism  nor 
those  which  the  church  held  of  the  truths 
of  religion  were  entirely  satisfactory ; 
and,  especially,  that  in  each  of  these  men 
there  is  a  distinct  revolt  from  the  cold 
and  formal  ideas  which  scepticism,  on 
the  one  hand,  and  the  church,  on  the 
other  hand,  had  of  Almighty  God. 

Shelley,  for  instance,  would  not  rest 
content  with  the  atheism  which  he  him- 
self had  written ;  and  from  the  un- 
churchly  and  churchly  Deism  of  his  time, 
which  conceived  of  God  afar  off,  unre- 
lated in  any  vital  or  living  way  to  earth 
or  man,  he  stood  at  an  equal  distance. 
He  was  not  long  in  finding  the  unsatis- 
factoriness  of  the  doctrine  of  "  Queen 
Mab,"  and  in  the  fragment  which  he  left 
of  his  intended  treatise  on  Christianity 
occurs  this  strong  passage  :     **  There  is 


28  The  Higher  Ministries 

a  power  by  which  we  are  surrounded, 
like  the  atmosphere  in  which  some  mo- 
tionless lyre  is  suspended,  which  visits 
with  its  breath  our  silent  chords  at  will. 
Our  most  imperial  and  stupendous  qual- 
ities— those  on  which  the  majesty  and 
the  power  of  humanity  is  erected — are, 
relatively  to  the  inferior  portion  of  its 
mechanism,  active  and  imperial,  but  they 
are  the  passive  slaves  of  some  higher 
and  more  omnipotent  power.  This 
power  is  God  ;  and  those  who  have  seen 
God  have,  in  the  period  of  their  purer 
and  more  perfect  nature,  been  harmon- 
ized by  their  own  will  to  so  exquisite  a 
consentaneity  of  power  as  to  give  di- 
vinest  melody,  when  the  breath  of  uni- 
versal being  sweeps  over  their  frames." 
He  was,  in  truth,  never  more  sure  to 
go  astray  than  in  his  accounts  of  his  own 
belief  on  religious  matters,  except  per- 
haps when  he  mistook  his  perfectly  char- 
acteristic idealism  for  Plato's,  and  thought 
himself  a  Platonist.  Shelley  was,  at 
times,  in  desperate  earnestness  bent  on 
being  an  atheist,  but  the  great  truth  of 
the  immanence  of  God  kept  bursting  forth 
from  within  his  soul ;  it  was  blazing  out 


Of  Recent  English  Poetry  29 

before  him  from  the  fiery  heart  of  earth 
and  uttering  its  presence  to  him  in  the 
richness  and  warmth  of  quiet  days  and 
nights ;  and  that  truth,  when  it  was 
caught  up  alone,  without  the  other  truth 
of  the  Supreme  one,  namely,  the  tran- 
scetidence  of  God,  made  him  a  Pantheist. 
God  transcends  the  world — that  idea  had 
been  preached  and  poeticized  so  long 
that  the  world  of  nature  and  man  seemed 
thoroughly  disassociated  from  its  Creator 
and  Lord.  It  is  hardly  to  be  wondered 
at  that  so  protesting  a  soul,  and  so  truly 
a  mystic  as  he  was,  should  thus  fall  back 
upon  Pantheism — that  faith  which  in  all 
times  has  had  such  an  attraction  for  rare 
souls  such  as  Scotus  Erigena  and 
Spinoza.  The  age  was  dominated  by  a 
practical  Deism  which  made  God,  not 
the  Supreme  Creative  Vitality  whose  im- 
pulse and  powers  are  felt  everywhere, 
but  a  Deus  ex  Machina — a  far-away  be- 
ing which  had  sometime  created  and  now 
looked  on  to  see  how  the  universe,  wheels, 
cogs,  and  all  would  run.  The  sympa- 
thetic imagination  of  Shelley  had  no 
faith  in  or  for  such  a  barren  spectre. 
He  turned  to  nature  and  saw  at  least 


30  The  Higher  Ministries 

the  "Spirit  of  Beauty";  he  even  de- 
tected at  times  an  "  awful  loveliness  "  in 
man,  and  along 

**  the  beaten  road 
Which  these  poor  slaves  with  weary  footsteps 

tread, 
Who  travel  to  their  home  among  the  dead 
By  the  broad  highway  of  the  world." 

This,  impersonal  as  it  was,  was  more 
to  him  than  that  huge  fiction  which  much 
of  the  poor  Theism  and  all  of  the  con- 
fessed Deism  of  his  day  held  in  awe.  He 
embraced  it  under  different  names,  and 
wrote  a  subtle  Pantheism. 

Coleridge,  however,  appeared  to  be  yet 
more  annoyingly  pantheistic,  because  he 
wrote  theology ;  and  the  theologians  of 
his  day,  with  many  good  people  of  our 
own  who  do  not  see  the  truth  which  much 
of  our  Theism  has  shut  out  and  which 
Pantheism  takes  in,  join  in  this  quite  ig- 
norant indictment.  It  is  asked :  did  he 
not  become  a  mystic,  as  perplexing  as 
Jacob  Boehme,  and  question : 

"  What  if  all  animated  natures 
Be  but  organic  harps  diversely  framed, 


Of  Recent  English  Poetry  31 

That  tremble  into  thought,  as  o'er  them  sweeps, 

Plastic  and  vast,  one  intellectual  breeze, 

At  once  the  soul  of  each,  and  God  of  all —  "  ? 


The  answer  is  :  Coleridge  did  shake 
from  his  sensitive  spirit  the  mechanical 
ways  which  the  eighteenth  century  had 
consecrated  as  the  only  methods  of  truth- 
finding.  But  did  not  this  seer  of  High- 
gate,  unpleasantly  distinguishing,  as  Car- 
lyle  tells  us,  "Om-mject"  from  **Sum- 
mject,"  with  nasal  twang,  so  repeat  the 
thought  of  Schelling  to  Englishmen  and 
so  reprint  Neoplatonism  and  reissue  the 
idealism  of  Germany,  that  even  he  became 
the  apostle  of  doctrines  dear  to  Spinoza  ? 
The  reply  must  be  that  this  man,  into 
whose  English  soul  had  come,  through 
German  avenues,  the  ideas  of  the  unity  of 
all  realities,  the  primacy  of  spirit,  the  ab- 
soluteness of  God,  did  escape  the  conceits 
of  the  Evangelicals,  as  they  were  called, 
and  the  vicious  realism  of  the  sceptics,  by 
insisting,  oftentimes  to  the  exclusion  of  the 
corresponding  truth,  upon  the  oneness  of 
the  Reason  which  we  call  God  with  the 
Reason  which  was  within  him,  and  is  the 
"  Light  which  lighteth  every  man  coming 


02  The  Higher  Ministries 

into  the  world."  If  this  is  Pantheism,  or  if 
it  leads  to  Pantheism,  one  has  still  to  say 
with  Carlyle :  "  And  what  if  it  be  pot-the- 
ism, if  it  is  true." 

But  of  Wordsworth  I  have  already 
quoted  part  of  the  famous  passage  from 
the  "  Prelude,"  which  has  often  brought 
the  charge  of  Pantheism  to  his  door,  and 
I  aver  to  any  one  who  accepts  the  dictum 
of  Aristotle :  "  Poetry  is  a  thing  more 
philosophical  and  mightier  than  history  "  ; 
and  who  would  see  the  difTerence  between 
Christian  Theism  and  any  sort  of  Panthe- 
ism, no  poet  will  so  richly  reward  studi- 
ous attention  as  does  he.  Christian  The- 
ism includes  the  truth  in  all  Pantheism, 
just  as  Wordsworth  did  in  his  thought  of 
life  and  nature.  He  added  idealism  to 
the  realism  of  the  hour.  He  tells  us  :  "I 
was  often  unable  to  think  of  external 
things  as  having  external  existence,  and 
I  communed  with  all  I  saw  as  something 
not  apart  from,  but  inherent  in,  my  own 
immaterial  nature.  Many  times,  while 
going  to  school,  have  I  grasped  at  a  wall 
or  tree  to  recall  myself  from  the  abyss  of 
Idealism  to  reality.  At  that  time  I  was 
afraid  of  such  processes.     In  later  periods 


Of  Recent  English  Poetry  33 

of  life  I  have  deplored,  as  we  all  have 
reason  to  do,  a  subjugation  of  an  oppo- 
site character,  and  have  rejoiced  over 
these  remembrances." 

Whether  the  "  Ode  "  is  or  is  not  what 
it  has  been  called — a  "  clear  reminiscence 
of  Platonism,"  a  comprehensive  Theism, 
which  postulates  the  immanence  of  God, 
as  Deism  does  not,  which  also  clings  to 
the  transcendence  of  God,  as  Pantheism 
cannot,  desires  no  loftier  strain.  If  the 
Transcendentalists  of  New  England  loved 
it,  not  less  do  those  of  the  Wordsworthian 
school  love  it.  If  it  is  to  Emerson  "  the 
best  modern  essay  on  the  subject,"  and 
"  the  high- water  mark  of  English  poe- 
try," so  was  this  poem  to  Newman  or 
Phillips  Brooks.  If  this  passage  suggests 
Fichte  — 

"  This  is  the  genuine  course,  the  aim,  the  end 
Of  prescient  reason ;  all  conclusions  else 
Are  abject,  vain,  presumptuous,  and  perverse. 
The  faith  partaking  of  these  holy  times." 

"  Life,  I  repeat,  is  energy  of  Love, 

Divine  or  human  ;  exercised  in  pain. 

In  strife,  or  tribulation,  and  ordained, 

If  so  approved  and  satisfied,  to  pass 

Through  shades  and  silent  rest,  to  endless  joy  "— 


34  The  Higher  Ministries 

it  also  suggests  one  who  said :  "  In  Him 
we  Hve,  and  move,  and  have  our  being," 
as  also  his  Master,  preaching,  **  God  is 
Love,"  "  The  kingdom  of  God  is  within 
you."  If  this  passage  is  Hke  the  Panthe- 
ism of  Scheliing  — 

"Thou,  who  didst  wrap  the  cloud 
Of  infancy  around  us,  that  Thyself 
Therein,  with  our  simplicity,  awhile 
Might'sthold,  on  earth,  communion  undisturbed; 
Who,  from  the  anarchy  of  dreaming  sleep, 
Or  from  the  death-like  void,  with  punctual  care. 
And  touch  as  gentle  as  the  morning  light, 
Restorest  us,  daily,  to  the  powers  of  sense 
And  reason's  steadfast  rule.    Thou,  Thou  alone 
Art  everlasting,  and  the  blessed  Spirits, 
Which  Thou  includest,  as  the  sea  her  waves, 
For  adoration  Thou  endurest ;  endure 
For  consciousness  the  motion  of  Thy  will ; 
For  apprehension  those  transcendant  truths 
Of  the  pure  Intellect  that  stand  as  laws ; 
Submission,  constituting  strength  and  power, 
Even  to  Thy  Being's  infinite  majesty  " — 

is  like  the  Theism  of  John.  The  first  two 
lines  are  as  far  from  Pantheism  as  they 
could  be,  and  the  rest  of  the  passage  is 
only  the  poetic  glow  he  has  given  to  the 


Of  Recent  English  Poetry  3'5. 

fact  that  God  is  not  only  over  all  but  in 
all.  There  is  no  fatalism  here.  All  is 
balanced  with  the  idea  of  personality, 
and,  so  far  from  saying  that  the  **  Spirits  " 
of  men  are  God,  as  waves  are  the  sea,  he 
only  says  that  God  includes  them  thus. 
It  is  a  vision  of  a  universe  filled  with  life 
and  it  has  no  strain  in  which  Christian 
Theism  does  not  join  ;  but  that  Christian 
Theism  has  included  the  truth  which  is  in 
Pantheism. 

Wordsworth's  influence  has  gone  into 
the  literature  of  description.  Nature  has 
seemed  to  have  a  gospel  for  our  un- 
naturalness  which  we  may  well  heed. 
These  ideas  of  man,  and  of  nature,  it  is 
useless  to  say,  have  been  an  occult  but 
pervasive  force  operating  in  men's  minds 
with  gracious  influence,  and  have  con- 
tributed in  places  where  they  are  likely 
least  to  be  reverenced  and  confessed  to- 
ward the  strength  and  sanity  of  that  great 
current  of  inquiry  and  philosophizing  of 
which  we  are  so  conscious  in  our  day, 
the  scientific  movement.  It  has  been  a 
lofty  view  of  nature,  whether  openly 
Christian  or  not,  which  has  been  at  the 
bottom  of  the  matchless  research  of  our 


36  The  Higher  Ministries 

great  scientific  minds.  It  has  been  a 
very  poetic  view  of  nature,  indeed,  which 
has  governed  the  thought  and  led  the 
philosophizing  of  the  first  thinkers  of  the 
time  ;  Tyndall,  Huxley,  Darwin,  Russell 
Wallace — each  shows  the  touch  upon  his 
soul  of  that  nobler  conception  of  nature, 
which,  without  the  seeming  of  cant,  works 
in  the  poetry  of  him  who  stands  at  the 
opening  of  our  epoch,  uttering  "  nothing 
base."  These  ideas  have  as  largely  in- 
structed the  religious  consciousness  of 
our  day.  Nature  had  been  too  much 
conceived  as  a  "  manufactured  article  "  ; 
she  was  to  become  fresh  and  vital  with 
creative  power  in  every  movement,  as 
under  the  eye  of  Wordsworth.  Had  the- 
ology and  religion  thoroughly  entered 
into  communion  with  the  God  which 
Wordsworth  saw  in  the  movement  of  a 
seed  and  heard  in  its  pain,  that  shameful 
ignorance  which  has  stood  up  with  pious 
curses  and  laborious  refutation  to  oppose 
the  development  of  our  current  philosophy 
of  nature  would  never  have  confessed  it- 
self ;  and  there  is  as  little  of  it  as  there  is, 
because  of  that  higher  conception  of  nature 
and  of   God,  which   for  those   pregnant 


Of  Recent  English  Poetry  37 

years,  his  genius  breathed  into  English 
thought. 

I  have  thus  held  before  you  these  three 
spiritual  forces,  because  they,  most  of  all 
the  singers  and  thinkers  of  the  generation 
which  has  influenced  the  leaders  of  ours, 
represent  the  thoughts  and  impulses 
which  made  the  problem  in  the  spiritual 
life  which  every  worthy  poet  read  to-day 
has  sought  to  solve.  Christian  living,  so 
far  as  it  was  under  the  influence  of  ideas 
at  all,  emerged  from  the  eighteenth  cen- 
tury, with  its  shallow  scepticism,  its  easy 
manners,  and  its  political  storm,  sure  to 
meet  the  necessity  of  a  thorough  restate- 
ment of  faith.  Burns,  in  Calvinistic  Scot- 
land, was  but  the  prophet  of  MacLeod 
Campbell,  Norman  Macleod  and  John 
TuUoch  ;  and  Byron  and  Shelley  in  Eng- 
land were  the  undeniable  evidence  that, 
in  the  souls  of  thoughtful  people,  ques- 
tions as  to  the  authority  of  the  sacred 
books,  the  reality  and  character  of  the 
incarnation,  the  nature  and  extent  of 
atonement,  the  place  of  reason,  and  the 
province  of  faith,  the  mysterious  future, 
were  rising  to  honest  lips,  and  that  the 
next  generation  should  search  for  answers 


38  The  Higher  Ministries 

to  them  in  its  highest  Hterature.  The 
poets  have  been  the  prophets  of  all  time. 
All  these  questions,  too,  were  to  be 
asked  in  an  age  when  there  should  occur 
such  an  outward  and  upward  movement 
in  the  march  of  the  physical  sciences  as 
would  bewilder  those  who  were  onlookers, 
with  the  number  of  overturned  traditions 
and  exploded  theories  as  to  the  relations 
of  mind  and  matter,  the  power  of  the 
human  will  and  the  fact  of  human  respon- 
sibility, and  the  history  of  creation  and  of 
mankind  on  the  earth.  At  the  same  time, 
when  these  questions  were  to  be  pressed 
in  the  midst  of  others  which  science  was 
to  present,  there  was  to  open  around  all 
humanity  an  atmosphere  of  most  engross- 
ing practicalism,  wherein  invention  work- 
ing along  with  science  should  astonish 
man  with  the  wonders  of  hand  and  brain, 
saving  labour  and  stimulating  desire ; 
new  worlds  of  fact  and  idea  discovered 
and  developed ;  vast  fortunes  accumu- 
lated ;  great  changes  in  the  political  fea- 
tures of  the  globe ;  slaves  freed  and  wars 
avoided  or  carried  on  with  unprecedented 
activity  and  tact;  democracy  steadily 
gaining  upon  the  earth  ;  and  the  practical 


Of  Recent  English  Poetry  39 

man  at  the  front  asking  the  philosophers 
and  rehgionists  what  a  Concord  Summer 
School  of  Philosophy  or  a  Church  Con- 
gress is  worth  in  dollars  and  cents. 

Now,  when  thus  the  religious  man  came 
eighty  years  ago  in  England  to  do  his 
own  thinking,  the  men,  who  most  of  all 
had  represented  those  forces  which  were  to 
both  make  his  spiritual  problem  and  help 
to  solve  it,  were  Shelley,  Wordsworth  and 
Coleridge.  Their  kind  of  spiritual  leader- 
ship only  might  lead  men  out  of  the 
difficulties  which  they  had  done  much  to 
create.  Not  Walter  Scott,  who  had  added 
to  modern  days  the  atmosphere  of  medi- 
aeval romance,  could  safely  transport  the 
human  soul  to  the  day  of  George  Eliot ; 
John  Keats,  in  his  worship  of  beauty, 
could  not  with  honeyed  sweetness  and 
melodious  rhyme,  lift  the  newly-stirred 
spirit  from  his  fresh  woodlands  and  ardent 
loves  to  the  hours  when  a  man  of  faith 
would  solemnly  ask  the  question  :  "  Is 
life  worth  living?"  The  tender  senti- 
mentalities of  Thomas  Moore  seem  very 
tremulous  indeed  in  the  mind  of  a  youth 
who  is  to  face  the  abysses  through  which 
a  Arthur  Hugh  Clough  was  compelled  to 


40  The  Higher  Ministries 

thread  his  way  ere  the  Hght  came,  and 
even  the  associate  of  Coleridge  and 
Wordsworth  in  that  interest  called  "  Lake 
Poetry  "  and  in  a  common  hope  growing 
up  out  of  the  Revolution, — I  mean 
Southey — either  as  the  biographer  of 
Nelson  or  of  Wesley,  could  do  little  to 
prepare  a  mind  for  those  questionings 
and  delays  of  light  which  beset  a  Fred- 
erick W.  Robertson  or  a  John  Stuart  Mill. 
As  philosophical  speculation  and 
thoughtful  questioning  in  Germany  has 
rolled  its  tide  over  England,  and  the  shout 
of  the  dissenter  or  the  protest  of  the 
Evangelical  churchman,  or  the  predesti- 
nated insensibility  of  the  Calvinist,  has 
sought  in  vain  to  beat  it  back,  Coleridge's 
unique  teaching,  which  had  been  in- 
fluenced by  Schelling  and  yet  had  been 
faithful  to  the  Church  of  God,  has  been 
appreciated ;  and  it  has  also  been  valued 
when  a  verdant  statesmanship  and  an 
ambitious  churchmanship  have  filled  the 
air  with  their  cries.  As  venerable  dog- 
matism has  insisted  on  a  Maurice  or  a 
Thomas  Arnold  or  a  MacLeod  Campbell 
or  an  Arthur  Stanley  being  wise  above 
that  which  was  written,  or  subscribing  to 


Of  Recent  English  Poetry  41 

and  defending  dogmas  as  to  the  nature 
of  God  and  the  work  of  Christ  and  the 
destiny  of  man  which  repulse  the  moral 
sense  and  exile  reason,  the  effect  of  this 
one  voice  which  spoke  to  our  fathers  has 
been  like  that  of  the  awakening  hand 
which  comes  in  the  moment  of  some 
awful  nightmare.  As  science  has  come 
in  lately  with  precious  burdens  of  rocks 
and  shells,  protoplasm  and  alkalis,  and 
has  dumped  the  new  physical  universe 
down  upon  the  human  soul,  the  yearning 
of  Shelley  only  as  informed  by  the  spirit- 
ual philosophy  of  Coleridge  has  rescued 
the  soul ;  and  the  vision  of  what  nature 
is,  which  Wordsworth  left,  has  remained 
so  unshattered  that  the  God  who  is  above 
all  and  yet  in  all  has  never  ceased  to 
speak  to  listening  and  eager  souls.  In  a 
noisy,  self-asserting  age,  Wordsworth's 
calm  has  been  felt  like  a  benediction.  In 
a  time  when  liberty  has  meant  license 
oftentimes,  and  when  social  discontent 
has  sent  its  flame  of  hate  and  rage  far  up 
into  the  sky,  the  sturdy  soul,  who,  at  the 
beginning  of  our  era  breathed  into  the 
drops  of  our  blood,  has  again  sung  his 
paean  of  duty  and  his  psalm  of  peace. 


42  The  Higher  Ministries 

First,  an  admirer,  then  a  condemner  of 
the  French  Revolution,  Wordsworth,  like 
Burke,  like  all  lovers  of  law,  in  his  view 
of  man,  of  nature  and  of  the  Divine,  be- 
comes the  bridge  over  which  the  mind  of 
England  has  gone  from  a  Byronic  alliance 
with  revolution  to  a  faith  in  evolution — in 
thought  and  civilization,  as  in  nature  so 
in  progress — that  dominance  of  law  and 
truth  of  which  Tennyson  was  our  sweetest 
singer.  So  truly  does  God  continue  the 
education  of  the  race ;  so  fitly  does 
Wordsworth  stand  as  the  great  religious 
poet-teacher  of  an  age  preceding  us  and 
deeply  influencing  our  own. 

We  thus  find  how  much  these  poets  have 
done  to  create  that  atmosphere  in  which 
Browning  should  write  the  words  which 
so  much  worry  outworn  theories  and  yet 
so  completely  answer  our  most  serious 
questions.  Tennyson  offers  his  "  Flower 
in  the  Crannied  Wall,"  and  Matthew  Ar- 
nold his  exposition  of  the  word  of  Saint 
Bernard,  at  this  juncture.  These  men, 
each  after  his  kind,  were  idealists.  They 
stood  in  contrast  with  that  earthy  and 
mechanical  realism  which  had  not  a 
dream  or  a  reverie,  and  which  had  even 


Of  Recent  English  Poetry  43 

fought  its  way  into  the  orthodoxy  of  the 
day.  Shelley  was  carried  into  Pantheism  ; 
that  idealism  delivered  Coleridge  from  a 
hard  and  cold  view  of  God  which  left 
nature  and  the  human  soul  godless ;  it 
made  all  of  them,  especially  Wordsworth, 
Christian  theists.  He  really  believed  in 
God  and  in  His  omnipresence.  Their  be- 
lief in  Him  did  not,  as  Coleridge's  think- 
ing went  to  prove,  allow  the  notion  that 
He  had  expressed  His  will  and  love,  is- 
sued His  laws  and  worked  by  His  holy 
spirit  in  Jewish  days,  or  at  any  other 
time,  to  the  exclusion  of  His  mighty 
working  in  the  hearts  of  all  men.  This 
conception  prepared  men's  thought  for 
the  study  of  history  in  that  fresh  spirit 
and  with  that  large  illumination  which 
Schliermacher  has  shown  and  Neander 
has  illustrated.  It  is  the  same  spirit 
which  Niebuhr  and  Bunsen  incarnated  in 
Germany.  Of  its  methods  Milman  and 
Arnold  in  England,  and  even  Carlyle, 
have  been  examples.  Since  their  day  a 
new  race  of  historians  has  come,  but  Cole- 
ridge's influence  has  remained  supreme 
even  with  them.  After  Coleridge's  in- 
fluence had  begun  to  spread,  the  whole 


44  The  Higher  Ministries 

history  of  man  became  sacred  history,  in 
a  sense  which  took  nothing  from  the 
great  books  of  the  Bible,  but  which  has 
aided  the  freedom  and  fostered  the  imag- 
ination of  every  student  of  history  in  the 
nineteenth  century.  God  was  in  hu- 
manity and  that  made  humanity,  its  Ht- 
erature,  its  civiUzation,  its  philosophy, 
everywhere  interesting. 

But  God  was  also  in  the  human  soul  as 
the  revelation  of  truth.  "  The  light  which 
lighteth  every  man  coming  into  the 
world  "  was  illumining  to  the  soul  and  its 
pathways,  if  man  would  but  trust  it  with 
more  confidence.  Here  were,  then,  the 
beginnings  of  a  Christian  rationalism.  Of 
course,  theologians  protested.  They 
said  :  If  it  be  thought  that  there  is  a  di- 
vinity within  the  reason,  if  God  be  said 
to  be  within  the  soul  answering  to  God 
without,  then  external  revelation-— the 
revelation  of  atonement  and  future  re- 
wards and  punishments — will  be  ques- 
tioned. They  did  not  over-estimate  the 
consequences  of  such  an  admission. 
They  did  not  dwell  too  strongly  upon  the 
fact  that  if  once  reason  could  be  conse- 
crated  by    Christianity,     reason    would 


Of  Recent  English  Poetry  45 

surely  make  sad  work  with  many  a  tradi- 
tion and  theory  which  was  often  said  to 
be  true  because  of  the  fact  that  some  man 
dared  to  say  it  is  unreasonable.  But  this 
influence  prevailed.  Christianity  was  not 
only  to  be  a  message  of  glad  tidings,  but 
the  truest  philosophy.  These  ideas,  of 
course,  did  their  work  of  preparation,  in- 
vitation, inspiration ;  and  they  created 
and  welcomed  a  very  diverse  race  of 
English  thinkers.  John  Henry,  Cardinal 
Newman,  claims  Coleridge  as  the  begin- 
ner of  that  High  Church  movement 
which  landed  him  in  Rome ;  the  Broad 
Churchman^  Frederick  Denison  Maurice, 
and  so  stern  a  Calvinist  as  Dr.  William 
G.  Shedd,  walk  together  to  strew  rose- 
mary on  his  grave.  Edward  Irving, 
with  his  splendid  oratory,  and  Charles 
Kingsley,  with  his  humane  spirit — one 
an  apostate,  the  other  a  devoted  Church- 
man— owe  their  voices  and  messages 
largely  to  the  author  of  the  "  Aids  To 
Reflection." 

Yet  the  lofty  gifts  of  these  men  thus 
led  and  inspired  did  not  reflect  the 
supreme  light  of  those  who  had  led 
and  inspired  them.     While  Shelley  made 


46  The  Higher  Ministries 

nature  leap  and  flower  with  sacred  ener- 
gies, Coleridge  and  Wordsworth  taught 
that  this  God  in  humanity,  in  reason  and 
in  conscience,  is  also  in  nature.  Na- 
ture's movement,  her  whole  range  of  ex- 
perience, the  thundering  sea  and  the 
breathing  flower, — all  partake  with  man 
in  the  life  of  God.  To  either  of  these, 
as  we  survey  their  poetry, 

"  The  meanest  flower  that  blows  can  give 
Thoughts  that  do  often  lie  too  deep  for  tears." 

Nay,  so  surely  was  God  in  nature  that 
with  Wordsworth,  she  has  even  a  higher 
ministry  than  this. 

"For,  the  man 
Who,    in  this   spirit,  communes  with  the  forms 
Of  nature,  who,  with  understanding  heart, 
Both  knows  and  loves  such  objects  as  excite 
No  morbid  passions,  no  disquietude, 
No  vengeance,  and  no  hatred — needs  must  feel 
The  joy  of  that  pure  principle  of  love 
So  deeply  that,  unsatisfied  with  aught 
Less  pure  and  exquisite,  he  cannot  choose 
But  seek  for  objects  of  a  kindred  love 
In  fellow  natures,  and  a  kindred  joy." 

Thus  the  imagination  of  England — a 


Of  Recent  English  Poetry  47 

power  which,  by  the  confession  of  Mr. 
Tyndall,  has  had  so  much  to  do  with  the 
courage,  insight  and  achievements  of 
modern  science — has  been  by  this  Words- 
worthian  influence  so  alHed  to  the  mys- 
terious soul  of  nature,  that  a  distinctly  po- 
etic as  well  as  awe-inspiring  conception  of 
what  nature  is,  has  come  in  some  meas- 
ure to  all  thoughtful  persons.  The  rigid 
manufacturer's  ideas  of  what  a  blade  of 
grass  is  and  what  man  is — these  have 
gone,  and  we  behold  a  theology  and  a 
science  which  have  been  accused,  the  one 
of  bringing  God  so  near  and  the  other  of 
making  nature  so  vital,  as  to  submerge 
Him  within  the  physical  universe. 

The  poetry  of  our  age  could  not  be  true 
to  the  soul  of  man  without  having  a  deep 
sense  of  the  value  of  contemporary  science 
which  has  so  long  influenced  our  religion. 
Mr.  Stedman  has  called  attention  to 
Wordsworth's  remarkable  words  on  the 
future  relations  of  science  and  poetry — 
"  a  prophecy,"  says  this  critic,  "  which, 
half  a  century  ago,  could  only  have  been 
uttered  by  a  man  of  lofty  intellect  and  ex- 
traordinary premonition  of  changes  even 
now  at  hand." 


48  The  Higher  Ministries 

"  The  objects  of  the  poet's  thoughts," 
says  Wordsworth,  "  are  everywhere ; 
though  eyes  and  senses  of  man  are,  it  is 
true,  his  favourite  guides,  yet  he  will  fol- 
low wheresoever  he  can  find  an  atmos- 
phere of  sensation  in  which  to  move  his 
wings.  Poetry  is  the  first  and  last  of  all 
knowledge, — it  is  as  immortal  as  the 
heart  of  man.  If  the  labours  of  men  of 
science  should  ever  create  any  material 
revolution,  direct  or  indirect,  in  our  con- 
dition, and  in  the  impressions  which  we 
habitually  receive,  the  poet  will  sleep  then 
no  more  at  present ;  he  will  be  ready  to 
follow  the  steps  of  the  man  of  science,  not 
only  in  those  general  indirect  effects,  but 
he  will  be  at  his  side,  carrying  sensation 
into  the  midst  of  the  objects  of  the  science 
itself.  The  remotest  discoveries  of  the 
chemist,  the  botanist,  or  the  mineralogist 
will  be  as  proper  objects  of  the  poet's  art 
as  any  upon  which  it  can  be  employed. 
If  the  time  should  ever  come  when  these 
things  shall  be  familiar  to  us,  another  re- 
lation under  which  they  are  contemplated 
by  the  followers  of  the  respective  sciences, 
shall  be  manifestly  and  palpably  material 
to  us  as  enjoying  and  suffering  beings. 


Of  Recent  English  Poetry  49 

If  the  time  should  ever  come  when  what 
is  now  called  science,  thus  familiarized  to 
men,  shall  be  ready  to  put  on,  as  it  were, 
a  form  of  flesh  and  blood,  the  poet  will 
lend  his  divine  spirit  to  aid  the  transfig- 
uration, and  will  welcome  the  Being  thus 
produced  as  a  clear  and  genuine  inmate 
of  its  household  of  man." 

The  hour  which  Wordsworth  foresaw 
is  here.  The  same  science  which  has 
seemed  to  uproot  religion  has  created 
new  problems  for  the  poet  as  well  as 
the  preacher,  and  the  next  century  will 
declare,  in  its  criticism,  that  it  is  one  of 
the  evidences  of  true  poetry  which  issued 
from  the  human  soul  in  an  age  which  has 
been  complained  of  as  unpoetic,  unro- 
mantic,  realistic,  that  its  song  has  incor- 
porated into  its  somewhat  involved  mel- 
ody the  discoveries  which  would  have 
broken  down  the  slight  philosophy  of  a 
simply  romantic  day,  and  that  its  music 
has  gone  on  enriching  and  being  en- 
riched by  the  glad  discoveries  it  has  found 
in  the  enlarged  knowledge  of  our  time. 
So,  also,  the  historian  of  religion,  looking 
back  upon  an  age  when  the  scientific 
spirit  had  so  thoroughly  compelled  men 


^o  The  Higher  Ministries 

to  review  their  faiths,  will  see  that  in  every 
torn  but  victorious  spirit  like  Robertson, 
in  every  chivalrous  soul  like  Maurice, 
there  lay  the  fresh  impulses  of  a  high  and 
personal  leadership  for  the  spiritual  life  of 
English-speaking  peoples.  Unquestion- 
ably this  perfect  understanding  which 
Arnold,  Browning  and  Tennyson  have  of 
the  new  relations  which  science  has  made 
to  exist  amongst  old  truths,  and  that  per- 
ception which  they  give  us  of  the  signifi- 
cance of  the  newly-found  truths  to  re- 
ligious thought  and  to  the  spiritual  life, 
have  made  them  supremely  helpful  to  our 
feverish  and  startled  age.  Singing  on,  as 
for  the  most  part  they  do,  with  a  sweet- 
ness and  a  power  unsurpassed,  we,  who 
are  perplexed  with  the  discords  between 
our  faith  and  our  knowledge,  so  that  we 
are  discordant  too,  at  last  take  their 
hands,  and  the  confidence  which  we 
have  as  to  the  sureness  of  the  hold  which 
they  help  men  still  to  keep  upon  the 
primal  realities  of  faith  or  the  new  hopes 
of  man  is  rendered  much  more  living  by 
the  discovery  which  we  make  in  their 
song,  that,  at  least  as  well  as  we,  do  they 
feel    the    pressure   of  the   things   which 


Of  Recent  English  Poetry  51 

have  so  distracted  us.  This  knowledge 
of  the  subtle  currents  and  evident  waves 
in  what  Mr.  Arnold  calls  "the  sea  of 
faith,"  which  currents  and  waves  have 
been  set  going  not  only  by  the  advances 
of  modern  science  and  philosophy,  but 
also  by  the  poets  and  their  songs,  is,  to 
the  heart's  great  assurance,  associated 
in  the  minds  and  songs  of  these  poets 
with  a  reverence  which  invites  into  its  awe 
the  trembling  souls  which  are  songless ; 
and  it  is  also  associated  with  a  profound 
knowledge  of  human  nature,  a  delicate 
and  thoroughgoing  understanding  of  the 
history  of  man,  his  griefs  and  aspirations  ; 
and  this  fact  binds  the  mind  of  our  time 
to  the  poet's  message. 

Poetry  and  religion  have  had  much  the 
same  cause  to  stand  for  in  their  attitude 
towards  science.  When  the  ignorance  of 
a  daring  unbelief  has  proclaimed  "  no 
God  1 "  the  muse  has  had  a  broken  lyre 
and  the  priest  a  ruined  altar.  For  poetry 
is  as  much  an  impossibility  in  a  godless 
and  spiritless  universe  as  is  religion. 
When  the  folly  of  a  superficial  student 
has  announced  the  death  of  faith,  the 
singer  and  the  devotee,  the  minstrel  and 


52  The  Higher  Ministries 

the  minister  have  felt  a  common  fataUty 
possible  and  impending.  For  the  poet's 
imagination  dies  in  the  air  of  doubt,  as 
truly  as  the  religionist's  prayer  perishes 
in  agnosticism — his  imagination  having 
the  loftiest  flight  in  an  act  of  faith.  How 
truly  contemporary  English  verse  in  Ar- 
nold, Tennyson  and  Browning  has  shared 
the  peril  and  the  victory  of  faith,  we  will 
seek  to  discover  in  the  succeeding  lec- 
tures. 


LECTURE  II 


MATTHEW  ARNOLD 


The  value  of  such  a  man  as  Matthew 
Arnold  to  those  of  us  who  have  been  less 
generously  endowed  and  less  thoroughly 
trained,  who  nevertheless  have  many  of  his 
spiritual  interests,  lies  in  his  representa- 
tive quality  and  function.  In  spite  of  his 
greater  scholarship,  finer  vision,  severer 
classicalism  and  less  emotional  religious- 
ness, he  shows  us  what  we  would  experi- 
ence with  certain  ideas  and  ideals  if  we 
could.  He  is  so  little  a  man  of  self-iso- 
lating genius  and  so  much  one  of  us  all, 
albeit  of  intenser  glow  of  radiation  be- 
cause of  rarer  purity  and  higher  energy, 
that  when  he  returns  to  us,  after  having 
encountered  insuperable  difficulties  in  his 
own  effort  to  proceed  far  with  certain 
ideas,  and  brings  back  to  us  a  well-de- 
fined spiritual  map  and  an  account  of 
those  intimations  which  now  he  assures 
us  are  facts  of  the  soul  and  its  life,  we 
may  be  entirely  sure  that  he  is  express- 
53 


5'4  The  Higher  Ministries 

ing  what  we  will  see  and  feel  and  finally 
say  when  our  powers  and  patience  and 
duty  make  the  journey  and  the  return  our 
own.  Arnold's  austere  sincerity  of  mind 
works  in  genial  harmony  with  an  almost 
passionate  devotion  to  the  true  scholar's 
function — the  duty  and  privilege  of  stating 
the  truths  of  which  he  is  sure  and  point- 
ing out  the  directions  he  deems  most 
promising  for  men  of  like  temper  and  re- 
straint to  take,  if  they  will  find  more 
truths. 

We  must  not  grow  weary  of  his  itera- 
tion. He  is  always  a  teacher.  Some 
things  have  needed  repetition  to  our 
changeful  minds  and  they  are  the  things 
with  which  Arnold  is  most  concerned. 
We  cannot  well  spare  the  movement  of 
the  strings  in  the  melodious  utterance  of 
current  thought — a  movement  which  was 
initiated  by  certain  restless  convictions 
which  took  up  so  often  the  phrase  of 
Dean  Swift  and  proved  to  us  that  "  sweet- 
ness and  light "  mean  "  lucidity  of  mind 
and  largeness  of  temper."  We  cannot 
too  often  reflect  that  religion  is  at  least 
"  morality  touched  by  emotion."  What 
he  enforces  so  repeatedly  as  his  praise  of 


Of  Recent  English  Poetry  ^5 

the  sense,  splendour  and  speed  of  Homer, 
is  always  worth  enforcing.  What  we 
miss  may  be  something  deep  and  lumi- 
nous as  to  the  substance  of  Homer  ;  but 
we  must  be  content  that  Arnold  has  set- 
tled it  that  no  translation  of  Homer  will 
be  approved  which  is  not  penetrated  by 
a  sense  of  Homer's  four  qualities  :  "  he  is 
eminently  rapid  ;  he  is  eminently  plain 
and  direct  in  his  syntax  and  in  his  words ; 
he  is  eminently  plain  and  direct  in  his 
matter  and  ideas  and  finally  that  he  is 
eminently  noble."  His  recommendation 
of  culture  appears  less  valuable,  now  that 
it  is  in  the  blood  of  us  all,  and  as  some- 
thing more  than  a  recommendation.  It 
was  worth  while  saying  it  over  and  again, 
that  the  culture  of  the  last  quarter  of  the 
nineteenth  century  in  England  as  he  un- 
derstood it,  and  religion  as  the  orthodoxy 
of  that  day  had  misunderstood  it,  were 
likely  and  advantageously  to  change 
places  as  to  their  importance  in  men's 
thoughts.  "  As  a  harmonious  expansion 
of  all  the  powers  which  make  the  beauty 
and  worth  of  human  nature,"  he  averred, 
*'  culture  goes  beyond  religion,  as  religion 
is  generally  conceived  among  us."    Here 


56  The  Higher  Ministries 

then  we  see,  and  we  perceive  that  he  sees 
his  function.  This  was  not  so  much  an 
overestimate  of  culture  as  Arnold  con- 
ceived it  as  a  just  exposure  of  some  con- 
ceptions of  religion.  He  is  a  Greek  totally 
out  of  sympathy  with  a  certain  popular  re- 
ligious philosophy  of  God,  man,  and  life. 
He  will  help  us  to  see  the  Greek's  failure. 
But  we  must  see  more  if  we  shall  rightly 
value  him.  We  shall  see  what  a  true  man, 
even  though  he  be  a  Greek  stoic,  has  the 
right  to  demand  of  any  religion  whatso- 
ever. As  a  Greek,  he  had  an  inadequate 
view  of  what  man  must  obtain  from  a  true 
religion;  but,  on  the  other  hand  some  who 
have  what  he  fails  to  ask  for  in  religion 
fail  to  ask  for  what  this  Greek  has.  No 
one  knows  better  than  he  to  what  con- 
fusion this  leads.  He  would  honestly 
help  the  sick  human  soul.  Yet  even 
more  descriptive  of  his  own  spirit,  than  of 
Goethe,  are  Arnold's  well-known  words : 

"  He  took  the  suflfering  human  race  ; 

He  read  each  wound,  each  weakness  clear ; 
He  struck  his  finger  on  the  place, 

And  said  *  Thou  ailest  here,  and  here.  *  " 

The  failure  to  find  a    remedy  means 


Of  Recent  English  Poetry  5*7 

much,  when  such  an  able  and  sympathetic 
hand  is  searching  for  it.  Some  may 
jauntily  conclude  that  the  ailment  "here 
and  here  "  has  been  overstated  and  that 
nothing  but  an  alleviation  is  necessary — it 
is  very  human  to  do  this  to  foil  our  despair. 
The  sheer  mental  force  with  which  Ar- 
nold does  this  at  times  is  warning  enough 
to  us  who  are  weak.  The  greater  man- 
liness of  mind,  the  totality  of  his  moral 
and  mental  energies  with  which  he  oftener 
refuses  to  deny  the  malady  and  get  on 
with  a  pleasant  palliative  is,  on  the  other 
hand,  an  encouragement  to  us  to  be  en- 
tire and  true.  More  than  this,  also,  we 
shall  see,  as  we  study  his  poems.  The 
Greek's  problem  as  to  life  is  less  serious 
than  man's  problem,  but,  assuredly,  even 
the  Greek's  problem  could  find  no  ade- 
quate solution  in  religion  as  stated  by 
the  constituted  authorities  of  English  or- 
thodoxy. It  can  find  none  to-day  in  any 
American  iteration  of  it.  And  so,  we 
may  study  in  Arnold's  poetry,  with  even 
more  advantage  than  in  his  prose,  these 
two  phenomena — an  inadequate  statement 
of  human  need  and  an  inadequate  state- 
ment of  Divine  supply.    Each  reveals  the 


^8  The  Higher  Ministries 

other.  It  required  a  man  of  extraordi- 
nary parts,  highest  culture  and  exquisite 
poise  of  mind,  to  stand  between  these, 
indeed  to  take  them  into  his  two  hands, 
and,  apparently  unaware  that  the  Greek 
idea  and  ideal  of  life  only  partially  utters 
life's  deepest  cries,  to  balance  them,  to 
show  off  each  in  the  presence  of  the  other 
with  a  dexterity  and  irony  so  fine  and  a 
love  for  truth  so  urgent,  that,  at  length 
this  man  became  one  of  the  most  lumi- 
nous teachers  of  a  single  truth  with  double 
phase  whom  any  age  has  known.  With 
his  father's  distinguished  powers  devoted 
to  his  training,  he  added  to  inherited  gifts 
from  Thomas  Arnold  himself,  his  own 
Greek  spirit  expressing  itself  in  a  flawless 
style  now  exemplified  in  literary  monu- 
ments as  faultlessly  chiselled  as  Phidian 
sculpture.  Admirably  uniting  in  himself 
those  qualities  of  the  poet's  personality 
which  are  greatest  and  whose  union  for- 
bids any  eccentricity  of  energy  or  even 
the  display  of  one  isolating  note  or  mark, 
he  gave  what  he  himself  called  a  distinc- 
tion and  style  to  forty  years  of  thinking 
and  feeling  in  both  poetry  and  prose. 
He  was  so  true  a  man,  and  yet  he  treated 


Of  Recent  English  Poetry  ^^ 

the  Greek  idea  and  ideal  of  life  so  wisely 
and  sincerely  that,  before  his  life  had 
closed,  his  own  soul  and  its  progress  had 
broken  down  the  Greek  equation  of  life 
as  he  proved  the  inadequacy  of  popular 
theology  as  a  philosophy  of  life  and  des- 
tiny. Thus  he  left  the  field  clear  for  Chris- 
tianity of  the  sort  Jesus  preached.  If  his 
poetry  and  life  teach  anything,  they  teach 
the  probability  that  Jesus  as  the  reve- 
lation of  God  in  man  alone  adequately 
meets  and  answers  man's  problem.  This 
result  came  to  Arnold  at  an  awful  cost. 
His  latest  vision  came  from  a  disaster  to 
his  early  philosophy.  What  though, 
amid  all  the  changes, 

"  Across  his  sea  of  mind, 
The  thought  comes  streaming  like  a  blazing  ship 
Upon  a  mighty  wind." 

What  though  the  ship  goes  shoreward 
burning  as  she  runs  aground ;  our  sky  has 
been  illumined ;  we  know  the  sea  better 
and  we  may  steer  more  wisely.  The 
beached  ship  is  Greek  stoicism ;  but  the 
mariner  is  safe. 

Before  we  examine  Matthew  Arnold's 


6o  The  Higher  Ministries 

Greek  cry  for  calm  or  goodness,  beauty 
or  culture,  let  us  note  that  whatever  we 
obtain  from  him  is  to  be  gained,  not  with- 
out some  understanding  between  us  that 
his  views  of  God,  nature  and  religion  at 
productive  moments  had  no  alliance  with 
those  of  the  past  which  we  have  looked 
into, — that  he  is  Wordsworth's  disciple, 
that  he  thinks  with  the  truth  which  lies 
in  Pantheism  ;  he  is  often  perplexing  as 
to  the  personality  of  God ;  he  regards 
nature  as  something  more  than  a  manu- 
factured article,  and  he  views  the  whole 
life  of  man  as  a  revelation  of  God. 
These  things  he  believes  deeply,  perhaps 
no  more  deeply  than  did  Plato,  but  not  in 
Plato's  manner.  Arnold  believes  with  an 
almost  Puritanic  strenuousness.  He  will 
have  no  mere  connoisseur's  relationship 
unto  the  face  or  heart  of  any  truth.  He 
sings : 

**  Man  is  blind  because  of  sin, 
Revelation  makes  him  sure ; 
Without  that,  who  looks  within, 
Looks  in  vain,  for  all's  obscure." 

Nay,  look  closer  into  man  ! 
Tell  me,  can  you  find  indeed 


Of  Recent  English  Poetry  6l 

Nothing  sure,  no  moral  plan 

Clear  prescribed,  without  your  creed  ? 

"No,  I  nothing  can  perceive  ! 

Without  that,  all's  dark  for  men. 
That,  or  nothing,  I  believe." — 
For  God's  sake,  believe  it  then  ! 

As  a  poet  he  embodies  what  he  praises, 
and  the  white-souled  Milton  had  no  finer 
mental  integrity.  The  muse  of  Arnold 
wore  the  sackcloth  beneath  the  radiance. 

That  son  of  Italy  who  tried  to  blow, 
Ere  Dante  came,  the  trump  of  sacred  song. 
In  his  light  youth  amid  a  festal  throng 
Sate  with  his  bride  to  see  a  public  show. 

Fair  was  the  bride,  and  on  her  front  did  glow 
Youth  like  a  star ;  and  what  to  youth  belong  — 
Gay  raiment,  sparkling  gauds,  elation  strong. 
A  prop  gave  way  !  crash  fell  a  platform  !  lo, 

'Mid  struggling  sufferers,  hurt  to  death,  she  lay ! 
Shuddering,  they  drew  her   garments   off — and 

found 
A  robe  of  sackcloth  next  the  smooth,  white  skin. 

Such,  poets,  is  your  bride,  the  Muse  !  young,  gay, 
Radiant,  adorn'd  outside ;  a  hidden  ground 
Of  thought  and  of  austerity  within. 


62  The  Higher  Ministries 

This  amply  endowed  critic,  a  lyric  bard 
with  true  Attic  accent,  and  a  most  sug- 
gestive teacher  of  reverence  for  things  re- 
ligious has  nevertheless  a  didactic  use  for 
the  ideas  just  mentioned  which  often 
warms  him  to  exhortation.  For  example, 
here  he  may  appear  to  deny  personality 
to  God  ;  but  he  inculcates  a  message  : 

"Yes,  write  it  in  the  rock,"  Saint  Bernard  said, 
"  Grave  it  on  brass  with  adamantine  pen  ! 
'Tis  God  Himself  becomes  apparent,  when 
God's  wisdom  and  God's  goodness  are  display'd, 

"For  God  of  these  His  attributes  is  made." — 
Well  spake  the  impetuous  saint,  and  bore  of  men 
The  suffrage  captive  ;  now,  not  one  in  ten 
Recalls  the  obscure  opposer  he  outweighed. 

God's  wisdom  and  God's  goodness  ! — Ay,  but 

fools 
Mis-define  these  till  God  knows  them  no  more. 
Wisdom   and  goodness,    they  are  God  ! — what 

schools 

Have  yet  so  much  as  heard  this  simpler  lore  ? 
This  no  saint  preaches,  and  this  no  Church  rules ; 
'Tis  in  the  desert,  now  and  heretofore. 

This  sonnet  is,  certainly,  not  a  denial  of 


Of  Recent  English  Poetry  63 

anything.  It  is  new  and  strange  to  an 
anthropomorphic  orthodoxy.  But  has  not 
this  a  deeper  faith  in  the  Divine  Omni- 
presence? Practically,  we  know  that  to 
obey  Goodness  or  Truth  is  to  obey  God  j 
and  Arnold  puts  everything  of  a  meta- 
physical or  theological  look  into  the 
alembic  of  practice.  If  it  stands  that 
heat,  all  is  well ;  for  "  Conduct,"  he  is 
always  saying,  "  is  three-fourths  of  life." 
Here  is  the  larger,  if  also  the  higher, 
Pantheism  which  is  hymned  by  Tenny- 
son. Let  one,  if  he  must,  insist  that 
goodness  is  rather  the  fragrance  than  the 
flower,  and  truth  is  the  sunlight  but  not 
the  sun  ;  then  will  Matthew  Arnold  spurn 
our  metaphysics  and  its  distinctions.  He 
will  say  what  is  very  cheering,  in  spite  of 
his  pervasive  melancholy  : 

Enough,  we  live  ! — and  if  a  life. 
With  large  results  so  little  rife, 
Though  bearable,  seem  hardly  worth 
This  pomp  of  worlds,  this  pain  of  birth ; 
Yet,  Fausta,  the  mute  turf  we  tread, 
The  solemn  hills  around  us  spread, 
This  stream  which  falls  incessantly. 
The  strange-scrawl' d  rocks,  the  lonely  sky, 
If  I  might  lend  their  life  a  voice, 


64  The  Higher  Ministries 

Seem  to  bear  rather  than  rejoice. 
And  even  could  the  intemperate  prayer 
Man  iterates,  while  these  forbear, 
For  movement,  for  an  ampler  sphere, 
Pierce  Fate's  impenetrable  ear  ; 
Not  milder  is  the  general  lot 
Because  our  spirits  have  forgot, 
In  action's  dizzying  eddy  whirl'd. 
That  something  that  ififects  the  world. 

Now  that  Something  is  God.  If  we  are 
to  take  that  Something  into  the  realm  of 
Conduct  to  which  he  always  appeals  to 
determine  what  is  true — that  realm  where 
alone  we  may  live  a  truth  and  find  its 
truthfulness — we  find  not  a  mere  doctrinal 
but  a  moral  reason  for  identifying  Good- 
ness with  God.  Our  idea  of  the  All-Good 
is  livable.  God's  idea  of  Himself  is  infi- 
nitely true  in  Eternal  Being.  His  good- 
ness is  His  glory.  How  does  God  con- 
duct Himself  ?  The  answer  must  be  in 
this : 

"  He  saves  the  sheep,  the  goats  He  doth  not  save." 
So  rang  Tertullian's  sentence,  on  the  side 
Of  that  unpitying  Phrygian  sect  which  cried  : 
"  Him  can  no  fount  of  fresh  forgiveness  lave, 

«'  Who    sins,    once    wash'd    by    the   baptismal 
wave." — 


Of  Recent  English  Poetry  65 

So  spake  the  fierce  Tertullian.     But  she  sigh'd, 
The  infant  Church  !  of  love  she  felt  the  tide 
Stream  on  her  from  her  Lord's  yet  recent  grave. 

And  then  she  smiled ;  and  in  the  Catacombs, 
With  eyes  suffused  but  heart  inspired  true, 
On  those  walls  subterranean,  where  she  hid 

Her  head  'mid  ignominy,  death,  and  tombs, 
She  her  Good  Shepherd's  hasty  image  drew  — 
And  on  his  shoulders,  not  a  lamb,  a  kid. 

There  is  no  duo-verse  or  multi-verse  in 
his  eye,  as  Arnold  discerns  the  presence 
of  God.  This  is  a  universe  because  God 
is  all  and  in  all.  This  exposition  may  not 
be  quite  satisfactory  to  metaphysical  the- 
ology, but  it  fixes  the  thought:  "The 
Kingdom  of  God  is  within  you,"  and  it 
provides  a  mighty  leverage  for  that  con- 
duct where  faith  in  God  must  live.  Per- 
haps it  is  more  Greek  than  Hebrew,  and 
it  may  turn  out  to  be  one  of  the  richest 
of  Greek  contributions  completing  the 
sphere  of  Christian  thinking  as  it  appeared 
when  Paul,  that  *'  Hebrew  of  Hebrews  " 
quoted  from  the  Greek  poet,  "  For  in  Him 
we  live  and  move  and  have  our  being  "  or 
when  the  Greek  Christian  fathers,  Origen 
and  Clement  spake.     It  is  a  faith  which 


66  The  Higher  Ministries 

surely  does  not  forbid  us  trusting  and 
obeying  the  Personal  God,  though  He  be 
no  anthropomorphic  being  such  as  Arnold 
had  too  often  troubled  himself  about,  in 
his  "  God  and  the  Bible." 

It  is  this  large  faith  in  God  which 
makes  such  minds  stand  with  awe  and 
prayer  in  the  presence  of  other  religions. 
"  God  hath  not  left  Himself  without  a 
witness" — they  are  finding  this  every- 
where. 

"  Children  of  men  !  the  unseen  Power,  whose  eye 
Forever  doth  accompany  mankind, 
Hath  look'd  on  no  religion  scornfully 
That  men  did  find. 

"Which  has   not  taught  weak  wills  how  much 

they  can  ? 
Which  has  not  fall'n  on  the  dry  heart  like  rain? 
Which  has  not  cried  to  sunk,  self-weary  man  : 
Thou  must  be  born  again  ! 

«*  Children  of  men  !  not  that  your  age  excel 
In  pride  of  life  the  ages  of  your  sires. 
But  that  ye  think  clear,  feel  deep,  bear  fruit  well, 
The  Friend  of  man  desires." 

Such  culture  as  comprehends  a  sym- 
pathetic insight  into  all  religions,  from 


Of  Recent  English  Poetry  67 

this  point  of  view,  throughout  the  prose 
and  poetry  of  Matthew  Arnold,  has  made 
an  appeal  entirely  Christian  to  both  min- 
strels and  ministers.  Yet  Arnold's  ex- 
perience as  a  thinker  on  religion  and  as  a 
teacher  of  morals — most  evidently  as  a 
builder  of  character — makes  us  pause  here, 
to  take  our  soundings,  before  we  go 
further  in  adopting  his  reckonings  and  a 
course.  We  have  left  our  old  world  with 
a  certain  churchly  and  narrow  conception 
of  God's  self-revelation  in  one  religion, 
namely,  in  Christianity.  And  where  we 
now  are,  Matthew  Arnold  must  tell  us  in 
familiar  lines.  The  true  minister  will  find 
many  a  sincere  man  saying  even  yet : 

Wandering  between  two  worlds,  one  dead, 

The  other  powerless  to  be  bom, 
With  nowhere  yet  to  rest  my  head, 

Like  these,  on  earth  I  wait  forlorn. 
Their  faith,  my  tears,  the  world  deride  — 
I  come  to  shed  them  at  their  side. 

That  path  of  tears  was  only  an  intel- 
lectual retreat,  and  it  was  but  half  dis- 
covered springing  from  tired  feet  towards 
darkness,  when  Arnold  began  to  protest. 

Here  let  the  minister  take  full  account  of 


68  The  Higher  Ministries 

himself  before  he  flees  where  no  minstrel, 
however  ascetic  and  austere,  may  get  rid 
of  his  brain,  his  heart  and  his  will. 
Wherever  a  man  is,  with  Obermann  or  the 
monks  at  Grande  Chartreuse,  he  will  have 
himself  on  his  hands  and  "  he  is  incurably 
religious."  No  scepticism  of  Francis  W. 
Newman,  no  monasticism  of  John  Henry, 
his  brother,  has  been  sufficiently  capacious 
for  "  the  soul  and  its  aspirations "  or  a 
mind  whose  "  Apologia  Pro  Vita  Sua  "  is 
valuable  only  as  a  warning.  Yet  our 
minstrel  stands  painfully  concerned  with 
man's  spiritual  distress  looking  first  one 
way  to  the  haunt  of  Obermann  and  then 
the  other  way  to  ascetic  placidity  at 
Grande  Chartreuse.  It  will  be  a  long 
time  before  men  will  leave  off  looking 
from  Rationalism  to  Romanism.  Arnold's 
unhasting  strength,  his  love  for  the  heal- 
ing in  nature  of  which  none  have  found 
more  of  the  leaves,  his  fearless  inward 
looking,  his  haunting  fear  that  he  may 
miss  the  unrealized  as  a  stimulating 
dream,  his  soul's  welcome  to  the  pain  of 
progress — these  will  not  harmonize  with 
incessant  doubting,  nor  will  they  be  se- 
questered  from   mankind.     He   may  be 


Of  Recent  English  Poetry  69 

baffled ;  he  may  have  to  learn  that  in 
many  men's  crises  "  their  strength  is  to 
sit  still "  ;  he  may  be  so  long  learning  it 
that  he  shall  grow  tired  and  fall  upon  the 
breast  of  God,  as  a  child  not  meaning  to 
go  to  sleep  just  there,  but  nevertheless 
finds  rest  on  the  mother's  breast  "  found  in 
darkness  as  in  light " — still  he  must  wake, 
and  then  he  will  again  sing : 

**  Achilles  ponders  in  his  tent, 
The  kings  of  modern  thought  are  dumb ; 
Silent  they  are,  though  not  content, 
And  wait  to  see  the  future  come. 
They  have  the  grief  men  had  of  yore, 
But  they  contend  and  cry  no  more. 

"  Our  fathers  water' d  with  their  tears 
This  sea  of  time  whereon  we  sail. 
Their  voices  were  in  all  men's  ears 
Who  pass'd  within  their  puissant  hail. 
Still  the  same  ocean  round  us  raves, 
But  we  stand  mute,  and  watch  the  waves." 

There  is  a  pathos  in  his  cry  which  no 
other  age  than  our  own  could  have  stim- 
ulated, and  the  minister  who  does  not 
apprehend  this  will  not  reach  the  heart  of 
our  great  spiritual  needs.  More  than 
Tennyson    or   Browning   does   Matthew 


70  The  Higher  Ministries 

Arnold  illustrate  this.  Our  age  turns  this 
way  and  that  in  its  search  for  conclusions, 
largely  from  the  force  of  habit.  Trying 
has  proven  so  conquering  in  our  day. 
It  has  found  so  much  in  unsuspected 
quarters  to  fill  its  purse ;  it  has  worked 
over  the  dump  of  its  ancient  but  forsaken 
mines,  and  lo,  new  methods  and  processes 
have  amazingly  enriched  us  and  the  dump 
has  been  made  more  precious  than  the 
original  diggings  ;  it  has  entertained  lofty 
aims  and  left  them  for  unnamed  achieve- 
ments ;  its  fear  to  fail  at  what  it  ever  set 
forth  to  find  or  to  do  has  issued  in  find- 
ing or  doing  something  more  grand  than 
any  dream  ;  its  yearnings  have  been  too 
intense,  crude,  and  hasty  to  live  through 
the  mist  of  dreamy  paganism  to  which 
they  have  appealed  from  a  Christianity 
partial  enough  to  generate  them  and  too 
fragmentary  to  train  and  to  crown  them — 
all  these  colours  and  tones  the  soul's  cry 
has  caught  from  the  age.  Matthew  Ar- 
nold has  uttered  it.  He  cannot  quite  give 
up  his  old  world.  He  will  not  yield  essen- 
tial Christianity  even  in  his  revolt  against 
what  passes  as  the  authorized  statement. 
From  the  inadequate  dogmatism  which 


Of  Recent  English  Poetry  71 

he  too  often  seems  to  confound  with  Chris- 
tianity itself,  he  hastens  to  a  rationalism 
often  Christian  in  its  vocabulary  and  as 
often  pagan  in  its  account  of  the  soul  and 
its  precious  furnishings.  Then  back 
again  he  leads  us,  all  the  while  deepening 
the  necessity  within  us  for  a  faith  which 
is  not  quite  his  own.  This  begets  an  al- 
most diseased  self-consciousness  or  a  shad- 
owy self.  Thus,  even  at  best,  he  is  pro- 
jecting himself  upon  nature  and  history. 
This  is  illustrated  more  in  his  experiences 
with  nature.  He  almost  blasts  nature 
with  the  hot  breath  with  which  he  loves 
her.  The  urgent  shadow  of  himself  gets 
ahead  of  him.  And  yet  when  he  is  free  from 
this  shadowy  self  in  front  of  him,  there  is  no 
more  inspired  revealer  of  nature's  secret 
beauty  and  meaning.  He  sings  by  the 
seaside : 

The  sea  is  calm  to-night. 

The  tide  is  full,  the  moon  lies  fair 

Upon  the  straits  ; — on  the  French  coast  the  light 

Gleams  and  is  gone  ;  the  cliffs  of  England  stand, 

Glimmering  and  vast,  out  in  the  tranquil  bay. 

Come  to  the  window,  sweet  is  the  night-air  ! 

Only,  from  the  long  line  of  spray 

Where  the  sea  meets  the  moon-blanch'd  land, 


"jl  The  Higher  Ministries 

Listen  !  you  hear  the  grating  roar 

Of  pebbles  which  the  waves  draw  back,  and  fling, 

At  their  return,  up  the  high  strand. 

Begin,  and  cease,  and  then  again  begin, 

With  tremulous  cadence  slow,  and  bring 

The  eternal  note  of  sadness  in. 


Sophocles  long  ago 

Heard  it  on  the  ^gean,  and  it  brought 

Into  his  mind  the  turbid  ebb  and  flow 

Of  human  misery;  we 

Find  also  in  the  sound  a  thought, 

Hearing  it  by  this  distant  northern  sea. 

The  Sea  of  Faith 

Was  once,  too,  at  the  full,  and  round  earth's  shore 

Lay  like  the  folds  of  a  bright  girdle  furl'd. 

But  now  I  only  hear 

Its  melancholy,  long,  withdrawing  roar, 

Retreating,  to  the  breath 

Of  the  night- wind,  down  the  vast  edges  drear 

And  naked  shingles  of  the  world. 

But  now,  what  else  has  Arnold  heard 
and  seen,  save  himself  ?  It  is  not  Dover 
Beach,  but  Matthew  Arnold.  If  this 
strain  of  music,  so  often  prolonged, 
wearies,  it  is  because  the  human  soul 
never  gives  continuous  sympathy  to  the 
scepticism  which  infects  the  heart's  blood. 


Of  Recent  English  Poetry  73 

**  Tell  me  not  of  your  doubts,"  our  age 
of  questioning  and  achievement  says 
with  Goethe,  "  I  have  doubts  enough  of 
my  own."  Arnold  has  taught  us  that 
our  doubts  have  been  so  honest  and  per- 
sonal that  they  have  made  one  feared  as- 
sumption impossible.  When  one  begins 
to  fear  the  issue  of  his  doubts,  he  makes 
one  see  the  impossibility  of  dark  atheism. 
He  is  on  his  way  to  deeper  faith,  and  his 
negatives  imply  positives ;  yet  he  can 
never  add  enough  minuses  together  to 
produce  a  plus.  Artistic  to  the  last  de- 
gree, he  instinctively  turns  from  this  bad 
art.  Perhaps  no  one  poem  so  fully  sets 
forth  these  apparently  antagonistic  tend- 
encies and  his  keen  impatience  as  "  Em- 
pedocles." 

It  is  here  that  we  discover  fine  spiritual 
qualities,  or  the  want  of  them,  account- 
ing for  his  incomplete  statement  of  what 
Christianity  is,  in  its  facts,  hopes  and 
motive  power.  And  we  must  think  that 
he  who  wrote  so  well  on  "  the  secret  of 
Jesus,"  who  has  rescued  our  Bible  for 
many  of  us  by  that  larger  faith  of  his 
which  masqueraded  in  the  doubts  of 
"  Literature  and  Dogma," — that  he  who 


74  The  Higher  Ministries 

has  taught  us  the  way  to  so  many 
streams  of  moral  power,  ought  not  to 
have  been  so  serious  with  dull-eyed 
British  Christianity,  in  fact  or  form,  and 
that  assuredly  he  might  have  found  for 
us  the  fountain  itself.  Even  so,  the 
Christianity  of  Arnold  is  not  that  of  the 
Bible  which  he  has  lifted  out  of  malari- 
ous mists  of  dogma.  The  following  lines 
furnish  a  brilliantly  stated  truth  with 
strange  lapses  towards  error ;  his  silences 
are  as  misleading  as  his  dogmatic  ac- 
counts of  the  facts.  He  is  telling  us  of 
the  effect  of  early  Christianity  on  the 
world  to  which  it  came  : 

"  On  that  hard  Pagan  world  disgust 
And  secret  loathing  fell. 
Deep  weariness  and  sated  lust 
Made  human  life  a  hell. 

"  In  his  cool  hall,  with  haggard  eyes, 
The  Roman  noble  lay ; 
He  drove  abroad,  in  furious  guise, 
Along  the  Appian  way. 

"  He  made  a  feast,  drank  fierce  and  fast, 
And  crown' d  his  hair  with  flowers  — 
No  easier  nor  no  quicker  pass'd 
The  impracticable  hours. 


Of  Recent  English  Poetry  75* 

"The  brooding  East  with  awe  beheld 
Her  impious  younger  world. 
The  Roman  tempest  swell'd  and  swell'd, 
And  on  her  head  was  hurl'd. 


"  The  East  bow'd  low  before  the  blast 
In  patient,  deep  disdain  ; 
She  let  the  legions  thunder  past, 
And  plunged  in  thought  again. 

"  So  well  she  mused,  a  morning  broke 
Across  her  spirit  gray ; 
A  conquering,  new-bom  joy  awoke, 
And  fill'd  her  hfe  with  day. 

** '  Poor  world,'  she  cried,  'so  deep  accurst, 
That  runn'st  from  pole  to  pole 
To  seek  a  draught  to  slake  thy  thirst  — 
Go,  seek  it  in  thy  soul ! '  " 

His  account  is  a  page  of  nobly  written 
history,  and  we  see  the  West  veiling  her 
eagles,  snapping  her  sword,  abhorring 
her  purple  and  the  imperial  crown.  The 
flutes  are  stopped  with  brutal  sports,  her 
palaces  are  vacant  because  lust  of  eye  and 
pride  of  life  are  left  behind. 

**  Mid  weeds  and  wrecks  she  stood — a  place 
Of  ruin — but  she  smiled  !  " 


76  The  Higher  Ministries 

His  Obermann  is  Arnold,  and  he  smiles 
while  he  says  to  his  heart : 

♦*  No  lonely  life  had  pass'd  too  slow, 
When  I  could  hourly  scan 
Upon  his  Cross,  with  head  sunk  low, 
That  nail'd,  thorn-crowned  Man  ! 

«*  Could  see  the  Mother  with  her  Child 
Whose  tender  winning  arts 
Have  to  his  little  arms  beguiled 
So  many  wounded  hearts  ! 

**  And  centuries  came  and  ran  their  course. 
And  unspent  all  that  time 
Still,  still  went  forth  that  Child's  dear  force, 
And  still  was  at  its  prime. 

"Ay,  ages  long  endured  his  span 
Of  life — 'tis  true  received  — 
That  gracious  Child,  that  thorn-crown'd 

Man! 
— He  lived  while  we  believed. 

**  While  we  believed,  on  earth  he  went. 
And  open  stood  his  grave. 
Men  call'd  from  chamber,  church  and  tent ; 
And  Christ  was  by  to  save." 

This  is  looking  backward.  Why  will 
we  look  ever  backward  or  forward,  when 
we  should  look  inward  ? 


Of  Recent  English  Poetry  77 

This  is  a  merely  historical  Christ — and 
such  can  never  save  a  living  man.  Too 
soon  such  a  Christ  vanishes.  The  New 
Testament  is  never  true  for  long  as  an 
historical  document  unless  it  is  true  as  a 
record  of  present  experience. 

**  Now  he  is  dead  !     Far  hence  he  lies 
In  the  lorn  Syrian  town  ; 
And  on  his  grave,  with  shining  eyes, 
The  Syrian  stars  look  down. 

**  In  vain  men  still,  with  hoping  new, 
Regard  his  death-place  dumb, 
And  say  the  stone  is  not  yet  to. 
And  wait  for  words  to  come." 

Surely,  he  can  only  look  into  the  future 
— "  wandering  between  two  worlds — one 
dead."  Then  he  looks  for  another  dream 
and  its  own  mystic  literature.  This  is  not 
the  Christian's  position  at  all.  His  Christ 
ever  liveth  within.  Christ  within  authen- 
ticates the  historic  Christ.  Man  was 
taught  by  Christ  to  expect  it.  The  spirit 
beareth  witness  and  will  show  Christ's 
words  to  a  man.  Without  the  indwelling 
Christ,  he  may  only  write  and  speculate. 
And  this  will  ever  be  the  pathetic  record 
of  it: 


^8  The  Higher  Ministries 

**  A  fever  in  these  pages  burns 
Beneath  the  calm  they  feign ; 
A  wounded  spirit  turns, 
Here,  on  its  bed  of  pain. 

"  Yes,  though  the  virgin  mountain-air 
Fresh  through  these  pages  blows ; 
Though  to  these  leaves  the  glaciers  spare 
The  soul  of  their  white  snows ; 

"  Though  here  a  mountain-murmur  swells 
Of  many  a  dark-bough'd  pine; 
Though,  as  you  read,  you  hear  the  bells 
Of  the  high-pasturing  kine  — 

"  Yet,  through  the  hum  of  torrent  lone. 
And  brooding  mountain -bee. 
There  sobs  I  know  not  what  ground-tone 
Of  human  agony." 

Of  all  lessons  which  Matthew  Arnold's 
spiritual  career  has  to  teach  through  his 
poetry,  probably  the  most  characteristic 
and  hence  autobiographical,  is  this — 
Stoicism  fails  to-day  with  any  true  soul 
just  as  it  failed  and  for  the  same  reasons 
that  it  failed  on  that  far  off  yesterday. 
Arnold  sought  to  turn  from  the  fever  and 
fret  which  the  author  of  Obermann  only 
quickened,  and  his  cry  was  for  calm.     Let 


Of  Recent  English  Poetry  79 

us  analyze  it.  Taking  the  age  into  his 
consciousness,  that  there  may  be  one 
open  secret  to  state,  he  says  truly  : 

Too  fast  we  live,  too  much  are  tried, 

Too  harass' d  to  attain 
Wordsworth's  sweet  calm,  or  Goethe's  wide 

And  luminous  view  to  gain. 

Now,  why  do  we  live  so  fast  ?  Surely 
modern  man  ought  not  to  be  driven  by 
the  multitude  of  his  own  time-savers  or 
frightened  by  a  world  which  has  shrunken 
in  physical  proportions  only  at  the  com- 
mand of  his  own  inventions.  The 
genius  which  has  achieved  has  been  so 
educated  in  and  through  its  own  achiev- 
ing that  it  ought  not  to  be  conquered  by 
its  great  achievements.  Even  such  cul- 
ture must  mean  poise  and  mastery,  above 
all,  self-mastery.  Of  course,  every  step 
leads  to  a  vision  of  much  beyond  ;  and 
yet  modern  man,  other  things  being 
equal,  should  have  obtained  some  sense 
of  the  calm  universal  and  the  unfretting 
eternal.  This,  however,  is  just  what 
modern  man  has  not  acquired.  Why  ? 
Why  are  we  in  such  haste  ?     There  is 


8o  The  Higher  Ministries 

only  one  answer — We  do  not  believe 
deeply,  loftily,  grandly.  Here  comes 
back  an  old  word  which  unhappily  es- 
caped the  absorbing  and  assimilating 
thought  of  Arnold,  but  it  is  as  true  as  the 
Greek  vision  of  beauty  and  as  valuable 
as  the  Greek  contribution  to  religious 
philosophy  :  "  He  that  believeth  shall 
not  make  hasted  Goethe's  "  unhasting — 
unresting"  was  born  of  the  serenity  and 
eagerness  of  faith.  All  sobriety  of  mind 
where  the  realities  of  life  are  in  full  view, 
all  calm  at  the  centre  of  the  storm  as 
coolness  in  the  heart  of  the  flame,  all  self- 
restraint  amidst  noisy  anarchy,  all  cloud- 
less vision  while  clouds  smite  below  as 
"ignorant  armies  clash  by  night" — these 
are  cradled  and  nurtured  by  faith.  Faith 
has  the  sense  of  the  universal  and  says 
with  Emerson,  to  voluble  haste  :  "  Why 
so  hot,  my  little  sir?"  Faith  knows 
the  mighty  presences ;  and,  trusting 
them,  faith  enters  and  encamps  within 
—JEheir  silences.  Faith  has  the  sense  of  the 
V  eternal  and  dwells  there.  It  has  taken 
all  its  chastened  care  and  feverish  anxiety 
where  time  is  no  more.  It  knows  the 
place  and  room,  the  time  and  leisure  of 


Of  Recent  English  Poetry  8l 

the  Father  of  Eternity  whose  home  is  the 
Infinite.  Faith  does  not  make  haste. 
"  My  Father  worketh  hitherto  and  I 
work " — this  is  its  untroubled  mood. 
"  The  Eternal  Not  Ourselves  that  Makes 
for  Righteousness  " — if  God  be  nothing 
more — He  is  eternally  for  righteousness. 
Faith  lives  in  the  consciousness  that  there 
is  much  done,  much  doing,   and  much  , 

yet  to  do  which  God  has  done,  is  ^^'^'^%\*&»M,  /  4^  \  -^ 
and  will  do  ;  and  it  escapes  all  stoical  in- 
difference, through  working  as  cheerfully 
and  hopefully,  because  of  the  character 
and  method  of  God.  The  contrast  be- 
tween the  Stoicism  of  Arnold  and  the 
Christian  vision  and  temper  is  as  great  as 
that  between  the  latter  and  Swinburne's 
Epicureanism.  The  minister  of  to-day 
must  be  familiar  with  the  fretful  cry  of 
Arnold  and  all  that  it  signifies  as  to  the  ef- 
fect of  Stoicism  in  its  ending  in  petulance 
with  unrest,  and  he  must  know  the  pain 
and  want  hiding  beneath  the  flaccid  lux- 
uriousness  of  Epicureanism — for  Stoicism 
and  Epicureanism  even  yet  confront  the 
preacher  as  they  did  in  Paul's  day  and 
for  the  same  reasons.  Here  are  two 
ancient  and  apparently  deathless  foes  to 


82  The  Higher  Ministries 

manly  faith  ;  and  they  are  to  be  under- 
stood by  the  minister,  as  the  minstrels 
portray  them,  if  he  is  to  find  out  men's 
sorrows  and  meet  them  with  a  divine 
medication. 

Not  in  Greece  had  Epicureanism  the 
advantage  of  songful  championship  more 
magnificent  or  forceful  than  in  Swin- 
burne ;  not  in  Greece  had  Stoicism  the 
gift  of  musical  speech  more  philosophic 
or  clear  than  in  Arnold,  His  appeal  is 
clothed  with  the  robes  of  both  day  and 
night.  Now  it  dims  the  sun  ;  now  it 
startles  the  stars  : 

"Ah,  once  more,"  I  cried,  "  ye  stars,  ye  waters, 
On  my  heart  your  mighty  charm  renew  ; 

Still,  still  let  me,  as  I  gaze  upon  you, 
Feel  my  soul  becoming  vast  like  you  !  " 

From    the    intense,    clear,    star-sown    vault    of 
heaven. 

Over  the  lit  sea's  unquiet  way, 
In  the  rustling  night  air  came  the  answer : 

**  Wouldst  thou  be  as  these  are  ?    Live  as  they. 

"Unaffrighted  by  the  silence  round  them, 
Undistracted  by  the  sights  they  see. 

These  demand  not  that  the  things  without  them 
Yield  them  love,  amusement,  sympathy. 


Of  Recent  English  Poetry  83 

"  And  with  joy  the  stars  perform  their  shining, 
And  the  sea  its  long  moon-silver'd  roll; 

For  self-poised  they  live,  nor  pine  with  noting 
All  the  fever  of  some  differing  soul. 

*«  Bounded  by  themselves,  and  unregardful 
In  what  state  God's  other  works  may  be, 

In  their  own  tasks  all  their  powers  pouring, 
These  attain  the  mighty  life  you  see." 

Two  things  are  evident  in  all  this  har- 
mony which  rises  out  of  discord ;  first, 
Arnold  is  so  personally  truthful,  that  is, 
he  so  sincerely  gets  into  the  core  of  his 
essential  being  in  and  through  this  ex- 
pressed longing,  that  he  betrays  man's 
thirst  for  the  Infinite. 

"  Still  let  me  as  I  gaze  upon  you. 
Feel  my  soul  becoming  vast  like  you^ 

Deep  calleth  to  deep.  Man  is  made 
for  communion  with  God.  Father  and 
child  must  live  each  in  the  other,  or  their 
natures  fail  and  lapse.  As  we  shall  see 
later,  his  poems  find  their  deeper  music 
only  as  human  life  deepens  and  widens 
into  the  Divine.  Matthew  Arnold  never 
could  make  a  melodious  rhyme  in  sight 


84  The  Higher  Ministries 

of  the  suspicion  that  man  ever  could  yearn 
away  from  vastness  towards  pettiness. 
The  escape  for  the  finite  is  not  away  from, 
but  into  the  Infinite.  But  this,  he  be- 
lieves, is  the  way  to  calm.  It  is  interest- 
ing to  see  that  Arnold  does  not  attempt 
to  obtain  this  much  desired  calm  by  turn- 
ing to  the  noisy  race  of  men  to  reform 
them  and  get  them  to  be  quiet.  He  would 
look  to  nature,  and  away  from  man.  He 
has,  however,  expressed  an  implied  faith 
that,  after  all,  calm  is  to  come  from  above 
and  from  God.  O  let  us  believe  a  little 
more,  Mr.  Arnold  ! — and  we  will  not  make 
haste !     Again  he  sings  : 

Calm  soul  of  all  things  !  make  it  mine 

To  feel,  amid  the  city's  jar, 
That  there  abides  a  peace  of  thine, 

Man  did  not  make,  and  cannot  mar. 

The  will  to  neither  strive  nor  cry. 
The  power  to  feel  with  others  give  1 

Calm,  calm  me  more  !  nor  let  me  die 
Before  I  have  begun  to  live. 

Now,  that  is  a  good  and  well  reasoned 
prayer.  God  alone  can  answer  it.  It 
brings  the  problem  before  God  and  His 


Of  Recent  English  Poetry  85 

unwearied  calm.  He  at  least  has  never 
been  hasty  or  fevered,  and  thus  gotten 
things  into  a  turmoil,  because  He  has 
never  been  untrue  to  Himself — "  Calm 
soul  of  all  things."  The  tranquillity  of 
God  then  comes  in  sight  as  the  only  real- 
ity to  which  our  appeal  may  be  made. 
There  is  a  peace — "  a  peace  of  thine  man 
did  not  make  and  cannot  mar."  To  per- 
ceive this  is  to  begin  the  reconstruction  of 
a  ruined  world.  The  universe  is  right  side 
up ;  the  restful  sky  is  over  the  restless 
earth,  when  we  pray  thus.  But  what  if 
this  "will  to  neither  strive  nor  cry" — 
bringing  to  our  memory  One  who  did  not 
strive  or  cry  nor  was  His  voice  heard  in 
the  streets — is  attained  only  by  yielding 
to  Him  whose  will  becomes  our  law 
through  our  love  of  Him  ?  How  near  we 
are  come  to  God  in  Christ  who  says : 
"  Peace  I  leave  with  you :  My  peace  I 
give  unto  you." 

This  brings  us  to  the  second  thing  of 
importance  :  there  is  a  fallacy  in  this  rea- 
soning, even  though  it  be  melodious  and 
surcharged  with  a  noble  longing  for  the 
Infinite.  It  is  quite  inspiring  to  gaze  on 
the    stars    and    accurately    accord   with 


86  The  Higher  Ministries 

their  quiet  movement ;  but  we  cannot 
suit  man's  cry  to  their  calm  with  any- 
logical  anticipation,  even  if  he  shall  imi- 
tate them,  without  comprehending  man's 
restlessness  and  finding  out  that  the  cause 
of  his  disquietude  and  fret  is  somehow  re- 
lated either  by  likeness  or  unlikeness  to 
the  cause  of  their  placidity  and  poise. 
And  here  the  truth  which  Matthew  Ar- 
nold's earlier  poetry  left  too  often  unsung, 
emerges  from  the  soul  in  all  its  undenia- 
ble force.  The  soul  confesses :  "  I  have 
had  experiences  which  the  stars  never  had 
and  never  can  have ;  *  self-poised  they 
are  *  but  I  have  lost  my  self-poise ;  I  was 
created  with  the  awful  gift  of  freedom  and 
responsibility ;  I  could  say  no  to  the 
'Calm  soul  of  all  things,'  and  I  have 
done  it ;  I  have  sinned  and  I  am  as  sure 
of  it  as  that  I  yet  '  yearn  to  the  greatness 
of  nature,'  as  Mr.  Arnold  advises  me,  and 
desire  to  *  rally  the  good  in  the  depths  of 
myself '  as  he  also  exhorts  me  to  do." 

This  is  a  brief  page  from  every  true 
soul's  autobiography.  The  sight  of  the 
stars  made  the  moral  law  within,  not  less, 
but  more  dreadfully  apparent  to  so  great 
a  man  as  Kant.    All  sound  philosophy  so 


Of  Recent  English  Poetry  87 

regards  this  phenomenon  of  the  soul. 
That  moral  law  is  founded  in  the  fact  that 
man  is  God's  child  and  God  is  man's 
Father.  This  reality  of  man's  sonship 
unto  God  quickens  and  broadens  into  the 
brotherhood  of  humanity  under  the  Fa- 
therhood of  God.  The  stars  ?  They  may 
be  "  unregardful  in  what  state  God's  other 
works  may  be"  ;  but  man  cannot.  As 
he  reaches  calm,  he  is  more  sympathetic. 
To  ask  less  of  man  is  to  misconceive  him, 
and  to  obtain  less  would  unman  him. 
**  Wouldst  thou  be  as  these  are  ?  Live 
as  they  " — but  once  having  lost  self-poise, 
we  cannot  be  as  the  stars,  and  so  we  can- 
not live  as  they  live.  But  let  the  truth  be 
told,  and  it  is  this :  at  our  best,  we  do 
not  expect,  cannot  desire  to  be  only  as 
they  are.  Man  is  so  created  that  he  must 
be  more.  No  star's  possibilities  touch  a 
segment  of  the  weakest  man's  orbit.  He 
is  so  hereditarially  related  to  the  "  calm 
soul  of  all  things "  that  he  must  be  in 
communion  and  fellowship  with  it  or  Him. 
This  is  his  life. 

Now,  leaving  for  a  moment  these  con- 
siderations as  to  the  manner  in  which 
Arnold's  Greek  Stoicism  striving  with  an 


88  The  Higher  Ministries 

Hebraic  religiousness  breaks  down  in  the 
presence  of  the  human  soul  and  its  ex- 
periences, which  are  the  stuff  and  impulse 
of  all  poetry  and  piety,  we  must  note  that 
Matthew  Arnold  himself  has  too  much 
youth  and  promise  of  soul  to  abide  long 
in  his  starlit  dream  of  calm.  One  virile 
and  eager  life  makes  sad  work  of  an  in- 
adequate spiritual  hostelry  like  this. 
Here  is  the  working  of  that  noble  discon- 
tent which  cries  for  a  better  day  and 
sings  at  stormy  crises,  with  Wordsworth  ; 

"  Bliss  it  were  to  be  alive 
And  to  be  young  was  heaven." 

Arnold  was  too  sound  an  educator  to 
remand  youth  to  such  a  fate  as  would 
deny  the  highest  value  to  youth's  divinely 
bred  agitations.  And  so  he  sang  a  song 
true  to  human  nature ;  and  it  has  a  bugle 
call,  even  if,  at  the  conclusion,  it  is  some- 
what muffled  by  the  stoic  who  too  often 
gets  control  of  the  musician  in  him : 

'Tis  death  !  and  peace,  indeed,  is  here, 
And  ease  from  shame  and  rest  from  fear ; 
There's  nothing  can  dismarble  now 
The  smoothness  of  that  limpid  brow. 


Of  Recent  English  Poetry  89 

But  is  a  calm  like  this,  in  truth, 

The  crowning  end  of  life  and  youth, 

And  when  this  boon  rewards  the  dead. 

Are  all  debts  paid,  has  all  been  said  ? 

Ah  no,  the  bliss  youth  dreams  is  one 

For  daylight,  for  the  cheerful  sun. 

For  feeling  nerves  and  living  breath  — 

Youth  dreams  a  bliss  on  this  side  death. 

It  dreams  a  rest,  if  not  more  deep. 

More  grateful  than  this  marble  sleep ; 

It  hears  a  voice  within  it  tell : 

Calni' s  not  life's  crown,  though  calm  is  well. 

'Tis  all  perhaps  which  man  acquires, 

But  'tis  not  what  our  youth  desires. 


We  are  relieved  of  one  of  the  weights 
of  our  own  scepticism,  and  a  certain 
shadow  lifts  from  the  path  of  heroic  living, 
which  always  involves  service  and  self- 
sacrifice,  when  so  clear-headed  and  true- 
hearted  a  man  as  Matthew  Arnold  breaks 
his  own  cherished  equation  of  life  and 
tells  us  that  "  calm  is  not  life's  crown." 
We  all  know  that  **  calm  is  well."  Such 
an  admission  as  this  by  Arnold,  in  the 
presence  of  the  facts  we  have  reached  and 
known  by  living  truly  and  loftily,  is  most 
important.  But  Arnold  has  made  addi- 
tional admissions  which  are  even  more 


go  The  Higher  Ministries 

valuable,   since  they   come  from  one  so 
thoroughgoing,  scholarly  and  sincere. 

He  has  aforetime  urged  the  man  in  an 
arid  state  of  spiritual  existence  to 

**  Yearn  to  the  greatness  of  nature ; 
Rally  the  good  in  the  depths  of  thyself." 

Most  of  us  have  long  ago  thrown  off  the 
incubus  of  that  distrust  of  nature  and  our- 
selves consequent  upon  any  belief  in  the 
total  depravity  of  animate  and  inanimate 
things.  We  have  wished  both  to  yearn 
and  to  rally  ;  and,  in  the  confidence  that 
each  was  a  good  thing  to  attempt,  we 
have  done  our  best.  Alone  we  have 
failed.  First,  we  have  found  nature  to  be 
what  nature  is  to  Matthew  Arnold.  Nature 
has  been  very  little  productive  of  that  calm 
which  is  "their  joy"  who  trust  her. 
Mind  has  dominated  matter.  We  have 
troubled  the  mirror  as  Arnold  himself  reads 
himself  into  nature  ;  and  each  man  says ; 

"  Well  I  know  what  they  feel  ! 
They  gaze,  and  the  evening  wind 
Plays  on  their  faces  ;  they  gaze  — 
Airs  from  the  Eden  of  youth 
Awake  and  stir  in  their  soul ; 
The  past  returns — they  feel 


Of  Recent  English  Poetry  91 

What  they  are,  alas  !  what  they  were. 
They,  not  nature,  are  changed. 
Well  I  know  what  they  feel  ! 

"  Hush,  for  tears 
Begin  to  steal  to  their  eyes  ! 
Hush,  for  fruit 

Grows  from  such  sorrow  as  theirs  ! 
Thou,  O  Nature,  wast  mute, 
Mute  as  of  old  !  " 

Mr.  Arnold  is  too  sincere  to  hide  the 
truth  that  man  is  more  than  nature  and 
that  he  cannot  wisely  "  yearn  "  to  some- 
thing less  than  himself.     He  says  to  us : 

"Know,  man  hath  all  which  Nature  hath,  but 

more. 
And  in  that  more  lie  all  his  hopes  of  good. 
Nature  is  cruel,  man  is  sick  of  blood  ; 
Nature  is  stubborn,  man  would  fain  adore ; 

"  Nature  is  fickle,  man  hath  need  of  rest ; 
Nature  forgives  no  debt,  and  fears  no  grave ; 
Man  would  be  mild,   and  with  safe  conscience 
blest. 

"  Man  must  beg  in,  know  this,  where  Nature  ends  ; 

Nature  and  man  can  never  be  fast  friends. 

Fool,  if  thou  canst  not  pass  her,  rest  her  slave  !  " 

So,  as  instructed,  we  will  yearn  to  some- 


gl  The  Higher  Ministries 

thing  more  than  nature.  How  swiftly 
Matthew  Arnold's  failure  to  stop  any- 
where this  side  the  fact,  is  leading  us  to 
the  Divine  Incarnation  !  Man  can  yearn 
to  God  alone.  And  as  he  finds  God  in 
humanity,  he  must  yearn  upward  and 
personally  towards  personality. 

And  now  comes  another  confessed 
failure.  His  exhortation  is  this  :  "  Rally 
the  good  in  the  depths  of  thyself  1 "  This 
means  energy,  moral  motive  power,  the 
ethical  dynamic.  But  I  have  sinned ;  I 
have  no  will  to  rally  ;  I  need  a  captain — 
and  if  I  have  any  good  in  the  depths  of 
myself,  Love  only  can  reach  it,  and  Love 
must  be  my  captain.  And  the  fact  is — 
and  Arnold  sings  of  the  serious  condition ; 
indeed,  no  other  minstrel  so  reinforces  the 
minister  at  this  critical  point — I  cannot 
extemporize  the  ethical  dynamic  with  any 
more  success  in  the  attempt  than  I  can 
get  power  from  obeying  his  apparently 
judicious  words : 

**  Resolve  to  be  thyself :  and  know  that  he 
Who  finds  himself  loses  his  misery." 

Ah !  it  is  myself  that  confronts  me  with 
shame.     To  find  myself  and  to  do  that 


Of  Recent  English  Poetry  93 

only  does  not  mean  that  I  shall  even  try 
to  lift  myself  by  my  own  boot  straps — a 
thing  impossible.  What  can  be  done  ? 
Mr.  Arnold  again  advertises  nature.  But 
here  he  invests  nature  with  an  intelligence 
and  ethical  judicature  which  is  in  man 
alone.  He  has  caught  the  way  of  the 
vanishing  band  of  materialistic  scientists. 
They  once  denied  God's  presence  and 
His  sovereignty.  Something  had  to  take 
the  vacant  position  in  thinking.  The 
atom  and  law  came  into  use,  and  then 
our  teachers  poured  all  divine  potencies 
into  the  atom,  in  order  to  get  the  physical 
universe  to  go.  We  are  weary  of  scien- 
tifically worded  phantoms,  but  we  listen 
to  this  : 

Then  when  the  clouds  are  off  the  soul, 

When  thou  dost  bask  in  Nature's  eye, 
Ask,  how  she  view'd  thy  self-control. 
Thy  struggling,  task'd  morality  — 
Nature,  whose  free,  light,  cheerful  air, 
Oft  made  thee,  in  thy  gloom,  despair. 

What  a  mythical  thing  is  this  nature  ? 
It  is  hard  for  Matthew  Arnold  to  kick 
against  the  goads ;  but  he  will  do  it,  as 
did  Saul  of  Tarsus.     Nevertheless,  both 


94  The  Higher  Ministries 

Saul  and  Arnold  are  too  sincere  to  be 
left  in  the  darkness  or  the  twilight.  He 
must  lodge  his  faith  somewhere.  So  he 
sings  again  of  nature,  as  a  child  with  par- 
donable anthropomorphism.  Tell  me, 
whether  it  be  worse  and  more  unphilo- 
sophical  to  give  God  the  features  of  a 
man  and  pray  to  Him  or  to  give  nature 
the  faculties  of  God  and  talk  to  her. 

And  she,  whose  censure  thou  dost  dread, 

Whose  eye  thou  wast  afraid  to  seek, 
See,  on  her  face  a  glow  is  spread, 
A  strong  emotion  on  her  cheek  ! 

"Ah,  child!"  she  cries,  "that  strife  di- 
vine, 
Whence  was  it,  for  it  is  not  mine  ? 

"There  is  no  effort  on  my  brow  — 
I  do  not  strive,  I  do  not  weep ; 
I  rush  with  the  swift  spheres  and  glow 
In  joy,  and  when  I  will,  I  sleep. 
Yet  that  severe,  that  earnest  air, 
I  saw,  I  felt  it  once — but  where? 

"  I  knew  not  yet  the  gauge  of  time, 
Nor  wore  the  manacles  of  space ; 
I  felt  it  in  some  other  clime, 
I  saw  it  in  some  other  place. 

'Twas  when  the  heavenly  house  I  trod, 
And  lay  upon  the  breast  of  God." 


Of  Recent  English  Poetry  95 

Let  us  notice  here  that  this  effort  to  ob- 
tain a  moral  motive-power  in  nature  has 
compelled  Matthew  Arnold  to  invest  na- 
ture with  a  history  which  is  at  least  as 
much  an  assertion  of  preexistence  as  we 
would  make  concerning  Jesus  Christ ; 
and  that,  as  yet,  nature  gives  no  calm  to 
us  in  the  Garden  of  Gethsemane  such  as 
did  He  who  spoke  out  of  the  heart  of 
sin's  tragedy,  saying  :  "  My  peace  I  give 
unto  you."  If  preexistence  of  moral  basis 
and  ethical  dynamic  is  superstitious  in 
the  case  of  Jesus  Christ,  it  is  in  the  case 
of  nature  still  more  so.  More  reasonable 
is  it  to  believe  in  the  moral  right  to  com- 
mand in  a  Son  of  God — a  man  who  came 
straight  from  the  heavenly  house — in 
Jesus  Himself — than  in  insensate  though 
sublime  and  beautiful  nature.  Always, 
when  scepticism  has  to  believe  at  all,  her 
credulity  is  excessive,  if  not  ludicrous. 

Mr.  Arnold  himself  has  forced  us  even 
farther  towards  what  we  have  called  the 
probability  that  Jesus  Christ  alone  fur- 
nishes the  moral  dynamic  demanded  by 
such  natures  as  Matthew  Arnold  himself. 
He  says  truly : 


g6  The  Higher  Ministries 

We  cannot  kindle  when  we  will 

The  fire  which  in  the  heart  resides ; 
The  spirit  bloweth  and  is  still, 
In  mystery  our  soul  abides. 

But  tasks  in  hours  of  insight  will'd 
Can  be  through  hours  of  gloom  fulfill'd. 

What  then  can  kindle  the  human  per- 
sonality ?  Nothing  but  the  personality  of 
Love.  Light  of  truth  will  not  kindle ; 
only  warmth  of  Love  can  kindle  and  this, 
I  repeat,  must  be  personal.  Let  us  be 
done  with  "  what"  for  a  soul ;  let  us  ask 
"  who  "  can  deliver  me  from  the  body  of 
this  death  ?  "  Who  can  forgive  sin  ? " 
diiid^'Who  is  life?"  "Who  is  God?" 
The  answer  is :  "I  that  speak  unto  you 
am  He."  But  that  answer  is  upon  the 
lips  of  Jesus  Christ. 

Why  should  we  any  longer  detain  the 
unveiling  of  the  picture  Christianity  of- 
fers ?  Here  are  certain  facts  and  among 
them  is  this :  after  serious  study  of 
Matthew  Arnold's  poetry,  we  must  ap- 
peal to  man  as  God's  recipient  of  His 
self-revelation — not  to  nature.  Nature 
never  "  lay  on  the  breast  of  God "  and 
nature  never  *'  trod  the  heavenly  house," 
as  has   man   whose  "shadowy  recollec- 


Of  Recent  English  Poetry  97 

tions  "  attest  his  essential  childhood  unto 
his  Father  in  heaven.  Man  is,  at  least, 
the  highest  point  in  nature.  Upon  him 
breaks  the  all-revealing  light  of  God. 
And  here  is  Arnold's  most  important 
confession  and  the  light  of  his  faith  is  so 
hardly  won  that  it  is  full  of  heroic  flame. 
It  involves  this,  at  least,  that  good  and 
true  humanity  is  the  best  manifestation  of 
God.  That  is  the  core  of  the  fact  of  God 
incarnated  in  humanity  as  the  only  ade- 
quate moral  motive  power.  Let  us  note 
the  corroborative  evidence  in  his  own 
best  poetry,  which  is,  of  course,  the  ex- 
pression of  his  noblest  religious  feeling. 
He  is  telling  us  of  his  father  at  Rugby 
Chapel.  We  may  well  be  reverent  here, 
for  no  more  genetic  soul  ever  touched 
the  future  of  England  than  Thomas  Ar- 
nold. Sing  ever  so  admiringly,  O  child- 
hood,— sing  of  thy  father,  for  admiration, 
hope,  and  love,  as  Wordsworth  has  told 
us,  are  what  we  live  by,  and  God  is  ever 
coming  again  in  redeemed  humanity ! 
We  shall  see  the  Fatherhood  of  God, 
when  we  know  the  Brotherhood  of  man. 
But  what  a  kinship  is  this  which  indites 
the  ode : — 


98  The  Higher  Ministries 

"  O  Strong  soul,  by  what  shore 
Tarriest  thou  now  ?    For  that  force, 
Surely,  has  not  been  left  vain  ! 
Somewhere,  surely,  afar. 
In  the  sounding  labour-house  vast 
Of  being,  is  practiced  that  strength, 
Zealous,  beneficent,  firm  ! 

"Yes,  in  some  far-shining  sphere. 
Conscious  or  not  of  the  past, 
Still  thou  performest  the  word 
Of  the  Spirit  in  whom  thou  dost  live  — 
Prompt,  unwearied,  as  here  ! 
Still  thou  upraisest  with  zeal 
The  humble  good  from  the  ground, 
Sternly  repressest  the  bad  ! 
Still,  like  a  trumpet,  dost  rouse 
Those  who  with  half-open  eyes 
Tread  the  border-land  dim 
'Twixt  vice  and  virtue ;  reviv'st, 
Succourest  ! — this  was  thy  work. 
This  was  thy  life  upon  earth. 

"  What  is  the  course  of  the  life 
Of  mortal  men  on  the  earth  ?  — 
Most  men  eddy  about 
Here  and  there — eat  and  drink, 
Chatter  and  love  and  hate. 
Gather  and  squander,  are  raised 
Aloft,  are  hurl'd  in  the  dust. 
Striving  blindly,  achieving 


Of  Recent  English  Poetry  99 

Nothing  ;  and  then  they  die  — 

Perish ; — and  no  one  asks 

Who  or  what  they  have  been, 

More  than  he  asks  what  waves, 

In  the  moonlit  soHtudes  mild 

Of  the  midmost  Ocean,  have  swell'd, 

Foara'd  for  a  moment,  and  gone." 


What  a  basis  for  belief  in  the  Incarna- 
tion is  such  a  living  faith  in  such  a  God- 
inspired  man !  The  filial  minstrel  ac- 
knowledges this : 

"And  through  thee  I  believe 
In  the  noble  and  great  who  are  gone ; 
Pure  souls  honour' d  and  blest 
By  former  ages,  who  else  — 
Such,  so  soulless,  so  poor. 
Is  the  race  of  men  whom  I  see  — 
Seem'd  but  a  dream  of  the  heart, 
Seem'd  but  a  cry  of  desire. 
Yes  !     I  believe  that  there  lived 
Others  like  thee  in  the  past. 
Not  like  the  men  of  the  crowd 
Who  all  round  me  to-day 
Bluster  or  cringe,  and  make  life 
Hideous,  and  arid,  and  vile ; 
But  souls  temper'd  with  fire, 
Fervent,  heroic,  and  good. 
Helpers  and  friends  of  mankind. 


lOO  The  Higher  Ministries 

**  Servants  of  God  / — or  sons 
Shall  I  not  call  you  ?  because 
Not  as  servants  ye  knew 
Your  Father's  innermost  mind, 
His,  who  unwillingly  sees 
One  of  His  little  ones  lost  — 
Yours  is  the  praise,  if  mankind 
Hath  not  as  yet  in  its  march 
Fainted,  and  fallen,  and  died  !  " 

If  then  God  has  so  manifested  Himself 
in  a  teacher,  friend  and  father,  that  this 
revelation  of  Himself  constitutes  a  fresh 
and  permanent  ethical  energy,  shall  we 
not  rise  above  nature  so  heartless  and  so 
unwilling,  to  that  faith  in  the  future  which, 
not  nature  but  man  under  God  alone  may 
promise  and  secure?  Pessimism,  which 
always  haunts  the  verges  of  Arnold's 
philosophy  of  life,  yields  then  to  a  Melio- 
rism prophetic  of  an  Optimism,  when  he 
draws  near  to  the  fact  that  God  has  re- 
vealed Himself  and  will  continue  to  re- 
veal Himself  in  humanity ; 

"  See  !     In  the  rocks  of  the  world 
Marches  the  host  of  mankind, 
A  feeble,  wavering  line. 
Where  are  they  tending  ? — A  God 


Of  Recent  English  Poetry  101 

Marshall'd  them,  gave  them  their  goal. 
Ah,  but  the  way  is  so  long ! 
Years  they  have  been  in  the  wild  ! 
Sore  thirst  plagues  them,  the  rocks, 
Rising  all  round,  overawe ; 
Factions  divide  them,  their  host 
Threatens  to  break,  to  dissolve. 
— Ah,  keep,  keep  them  combined  ! 
Else,  of  the  myriads  who  fill 
That  army,  not  one  shall  arrive ; 
Sole  they  shall  stray ;  in  the  rocks 
Stagger  forever  in  vain. 
Die  one  by  one  in  the  waste. 

"  Then,  in  such  hour  of  need 
Of  your  fainting,  dispirited  race, 
Ye,  like  angels,  appear. 
Radiant  with  ardour  divine  ! 
Beacons  of  hope,  ye  appear  ! 
Languor  is  not  in  your  heart. 
Weakness  is  not  in  your  word, 
Weariness  not  on  your  brow. 
Ye  alight  in  our  van  !  at  your  voice, 
Panic,  despair,  flee  away. 
Ye  move  through  the  ranks,  recall 
The  stragglers,  refresh  the  outworn, 
Praise,  reinspire  the  brave  ! 
Order,  courage,  return. 
Eyes  rekindling,  and  prayers 
Follow  your  steps  as  ye  go. 
Ye  fill  up  the  gaps  in  our  files, 


102  The  Higher  Ministries 

Strengthen  the  wavering  line, 
Stablish,  continue  our  march, 
On,  to  the  bound  of  the  waste, 
On,  to  the  City  of  God." 

But  any  true  City  of  God  is  possible 
only  in  the  cooperation  of  the  Sons  of 
God,  and  Jesus  Christ  has  revealed  that 
Sonship.  This  is  the  practical  aspect  of 
the  truth  of  the  Incarnation. 

Of  course,  now  that  men  are  beset  with 
faults  which  becloud  the  mind,  and  so 
many  of  us  are  not  clear  in  vision,  we 
must  not  rest  here,  in  an  argument,  the 
validity  of  Christ's  appeal  to  us  as  an  au- 
thoritative ruler  of  our  lives,  our  Saviour 
and  our  guide, — we  cannot  rest  it  in  any- 
thing less  than  life  itself,  and,  as  Arnold 
tells  us,  "  conduct  is  three-fourths  of  life." 
So,  then,  we  accept  the  command  of  our 
poet,  not  different  from  that  involved  in 
the  older  words  :  '*  He  that  willeth  to  do 
the  will  of  my  Father  shall  know  of  the 
doctrine."  Here  is  his  statement  of  our 
duty,  and  it  is  the  better  part  of  our  con- 
duct: 

**  Long  fed  on  boundless  hopes,  O  race  of  man, 
How  angrily  thou  spurn'st  all  simpler  fare  ! 


Of  Recent  English  Poetry  103 

*  Christ,'  some  one  says,  *  was  human  as  we 
are; 
No  judge  eyes  us  from  Heaven,  our  sin  to  scan  ; 

**  *  We  live  no  more,  when  we  have  done  our 
span.' — 
'  Well,  then,  for  Christ,'  thou  answerest,  '  who 

can  care? 
From  sin,  which  Heaven  records  not,  why 
forbear  ? 
Live  we  like  brutes  our  life  without  a  plan  ! ' 

"  So  answerest  thou ;  but  why  not  rather  say : 
*  Hath  man  no  second  life  ? — Pitch  this  one 

high! 
Sits  there  no  judge  in  Heaven,  our  sin  to 
see?  — 
More  strictly,  then,  the  inward  judge  obey  ! 
Was  Christ  a  man  like  us  ?     Ah  !  let  us  try 
If  we  then,  too,  can  be  such  men  as  he  /^  " 

Jesus  Christ  is  the  way  of  God  to  us 
and  He  is  the  way  of  us  to  God.  Man 
will  always  have  an  interest  in  the  poetry 
which  will  not  hide  his  higher  necessities. 
Its  compliment  to  the  nobility  of  his 
nature  will  not  come  in  vain.  Its  implied 
eulogium  of  his  possibilities  will  make  it 
dear.  Matthew  Arnold,  as  has  been  seen, 
honours  the  thirst  in  the  finite  for  the  In- 


104  "^^^  Higher  Ministries 

finite.  To  him  man's  true  way  out  of 
himself  Hes  towards  the  Infinite.  Time's 
river  is  always  drawn  thither  to  eternity  : 

**  Haply  the  river  of  Time  — 
As  it  grows,  as  the  towns  on  its  marge 
Fling  their  wavering  lights 
On  a  wider,  statelier  stream  — 
May  acquire,  if  not  the  calm 
Of  its  early  mountainous  shore, 
Yet  a  solemn  peace  of  its  own. 

"  And  the  width  of  the  waters,  the  hush 
Of  the  gray  expanse  where  he  floats, 
Freshening  its  current  and  spotted  with  foam 
As  it  draws  to  the  Ocean,  may  strike 
Peace  to  the  soul  of  the  man  on  its  breast  — 
As  the  pale  waste  widens  around  him, 
As  the  banks  fade  dimmer  away. 
As  the  stars  come  out,  and  the  night-wind 
Brings  up  the  stream 
Murvmrs  and  scents  of  the  infinite  sea." 

Here  is  eternity.  Where  shall  one  find 
it  real,  save  in  Christ  who  alone  may  say  : 

I  and  the  Father  are  one."  Matthew 
Arnold's  own  career  of  mingled  faith  and 
doubt  was  finely  described  in  the  follow- 
ing lines,  in  which  let  us  note  how  again 
he  gets  out  into  the  infinite.  It  is  man's 
only  true  sea  and  shore. 


Of  Recent  English  Poetry  105 

"But  the  majestic  river  floated  on, 

Out  of  the  mist  and  hum  of  that  low  land, 

Into  the  frosty  starlight,  and  there  moved. 

Rejoicing,  through  the  hush'd  Chorasmian  waste. 

Under  the  solitary  moon  ; — he  flow'd 

Right  for  the  polar  star,  past  Orgunje, 

Brimming,   and   bright,    and   large;  then  sands 

begin 
To  hem  his  watery  march,  and  dam  his  streams, 
And  split  his  currents  ;  that  for  many  a  league 
The  shorn  and  parcell'd  Oxus  strains  along 
Through  beds  of  sand  and  matted  rushy  isles  — 
Oxus,  forgetting  the  bright  speed  he  had 
In  his  high  mountain- cradle  in  Pamere, 
A  foil'd  circuitous  wanderer — till  at  last 
The  long'd-for  dash  of  waves  is  heard,  and  wide 
His  luminous  home  of  waters  opens,  bright 
And  tranquil,  from  whose  floor  the  new-bathed 

stars 
Emerge,  and  shine  upon  the  Aral  Sea." 

Here  is  the  same  goal.  "  The  luminous 
home  of  waters  " — and  the  "  murmurs  and 
scents  of  the  infinite  sea  "  are  of  mighty 
interest  to  a  "  foiled  circuitous  wanderer" 
who  has  toiled  with  the  sands  that  hem 
the  march  and  split  the  currents  of  a 
baffled  faith.  He  may  disappoint  you 
and  me  at  this  point  or  that,  but  one 
has   only   to   possess   Matthew  Arnold's 


io6  The  Higher  Ministries 

patience,  honour  of  mind  and  a  true 
heart,  with  ever  so  Httle  of  his  culture  and 
intellectual  acumen,  to  find  a  throne-room 
in  his  own  thinking,  which,  if  it  ever  be 
occupied,  must  be  occupied  by  Jesus 
Christ  alone. 


LECTURE  III 

ALFRED  TENNYSON 

The  failure  of  Matthew  Arnold's  Greek 
solution  for  the  human  problem  only  em- 
phasizes the  facts  with  which  any  gospel 
must  grapple,  if  it  prove  an  evangel  either 
to  the  poet  or  the  preacher.  It  is  a  fact 
of  fundamental  importance  that,  moving 
now  with  a  quickened  desire  for  some 
solution  for  life's  darkest  problems  out  of 
which  we  have  made  vain  appeal  to 
Matthew  Arnold's  classical  stoicism,  we 
are  not  in  the  least  removed  from  the 
material  out  of  which  the  most  important 
experiences  of  the  soul  have  come  and 
must  ever  come.  Approaching  the  circle 
where  the  light  seen  and  known  by 
Tennyson  falls  upon  everything,  we  have 
with  us  yet  the  incontestable  facts  of  man 
missing  his  mark,  of  his  sufl[ering  volun- 
tary defect  as  a  result  of  what  we  must 
call  sin,  and  the  desire  to  be  free  not  only 
from  the  consequence,  but  also  the  disor- 
der or  malady  which  is  the  cause  of  these 
107 


io8  The  Higher  Ministries 

bitter  results.  They  act  and  react  in  our 
experience,  even  yet.  Any  difference  of 
cadence,  of  rhythmic  fervour  and  richness 
of  elaboration  in  phrase,  accomplishes 
nothing  except  to  attest  the  unchanging 
significance  of  the  old  facts.  It  is  a  testi- 
mony which  ought  to  be  regarded  by  the 
minister,  that  the  finer  minstrel,  just  as  he 
more  truly  reaches  into  depths  and  heights 
of  pure  poetry,  grasps  more  surely  a 
theological  conviction  and  has  more  cer- 
tainly become  intimate  with  the  authori- 
tative facts  of  religion.  We  must  preach 
up  and  down  to  the  realities  of  the  soul 
and  its  experience — realities  which  the 
poets  illumine  till  they  stand  out  like 
Sinai  and  Calvary.  Many  a  man  suitably 
ordained  who  wishes  to  be  a  real  preacher 
misses  it  by  the  fact  that,  with  a  religious 
atmosphere  which  is  quickeningly  poetic, 
he  fails  to  deal  in  a  broad  and  deep  and 
high  manner  with  the  facts  of  soul-life 
which  long  ago  germinated  and  are  de- 
manding fair  treatment  in  his  hands  and 
at  this  time.  He  does  not  know  and  es- 
timate these  ancient  and  yet  modern  facts 
as  seriously  as  the  poets  have  known 
and  estimated  them.     A  world  was  once 


Of  Recent  English  Poetry  109' 

educated  by  Dante  and  Shakespeare  to 
have  and  honour,  or  to  be  had  and 
honoured,  by  a  conscience,  so  long  as  the 
minstrel  was  around  ;  and  this  ethically 
educated  world  did  not  desire  to  be  free 
from  that  august  conscience  or  to  hear  its 
less  imperious  commands  when  the  min- 
ister came.  Latterly,  this  conscience  has 
been  singularly  illumined  and  its  forces 
trained  by  such  men  as  we  are  studying 
in  these  lectures.  They  are  the  true  min- 
strels of  the  soul.  They  are  men  who  have 
told  to  the  soul  its  own  unspoken  experi- 
ences. They  have  given  the  soul  a  moral 
integrity  which  demands  much  of  any 
other  kind  of  ministry  or  minstrelsy, 
whether  the  one  anointed  speak  from  a 
pulpit  or  not ;  whether  the  one  with  coal 
of  fire  shall  address  men  in  prose  or  in 
verse.  It  is  all  too  evident  that  much  of 
the  failure  of  the  ministry  of  our  immediate 
day  lies  in  this,  that  the  minister  has  had 
no  such  perception  and  conviction  and 
burden  with  regard  to  conscience,  for 
example,  as  has  the  minstrel.  Only  such 
a  man  as  Canon  Mozeley,  in  his  sermon 
— "  The  Reversal  of  Human  Judgment " — 
can  compare  with  any  of  the  little  masters 


110  The  Higher  Ministries 

of  modern  poetry,  in  moral  tension,  as  to 
the  matter  of  honouring  and  making  clear 
to  men  the  immeasurable  distances  be- 
tween right  and  wrong.  Some  of  the 
most  widely  heard  of  our  preachers  only 
preach  up  to  a  certain  point  on  the  path 
leading  to  the  summit  of  Mount  Sinai,  or 
beyond  even  unto  Calvary,  and  only  there, 
they  may  safely  quote  Tennyson  and 
Browning,  and  use  the  mightier  words  of 
poets  to  justify  any  expression  of  their 
own  apparently  strong  feelings.  If  I  were 
to  say  only  one  thing  to  those  who  are 
searching  for  the  most  needed  help  for 
the  minister,  which  the  masters  of  litera- 
ture can  give  them,  in  order  that  they 
shall  be  equal  to  their  task  as  preachers 
unto  the  men  of  to-day,  it  would  be  this : 
Reflect  that  our  recent  English  masters 
have  trained  conscience  and  other  spirit- 
ual powers  within  human  nature  to  a 
keener  sense  of  the  terrible  reality  of 
wrong.  You  must  bring  your  preaching 
up  to  that  conviction  ;  and  your  preach- 
ing must  deal  with  it  and  triumph  over 
the  difficulties  it  presents.  To  do  this, 
you  would  better  become  acquainted  with 
the  soul's  territory  which  they  describe. 


Of  Recent  English  Poetry  1 1 1 

You  must  walk  with  the  minstrels  of  the 
soul  down  the  deep  ravines  and  gorges 
and  into  the  wider  and  profounder  abyss  of 
darkness  to  which  they  lead,  where  sin 
lurks  and  hides  ;  and  there,  with  these 
men  of  faith  and  vision,  it  must  be  yours 
to  behold  the  seed  of  the  woman  bruising 
the  serpent's  head. 

But,  before  we  ask  Alfred  Tennyson 
to  instruct  us  as  to  any  of  these  things, 
let  us  again  recognize  the  fact  that  the 
age  with  which  we  are  to  deal,  whose 
men  and  women  we  are  to  instruct  and 
guide,  no  longer  holds  to  certain  views 
of  God,  His  nature.  His  providence,  and 
His  grace — ^views  which  hardened  into 
dogmas  that  were  satisfactory  before  the 
era  of  Wordsworth,  Shelley,  and  Coleridge 
which  we  have  just  studied.  The  preacher 
who  has  no  adequate  vision  of  the  Divine 
will  not  minister  to  the  human.  That  the 
time  cannot  be  Godless  is  certain,  and 
that  it  will  cherish  and  obey  a  vision  of 
God  ennobling  in  the  presence  of  its 
moral  self-respect  and  entirely  compre- 
hensive of  all  the  concerns  of  being  and 
life,  is  just  as  certain.  One  thing  the  man 
of  faith  may  always  count  upon,  that  man 


1 1 2  The  Higher  Ministries 

is  travelling  progressively,  and  that,  there- 
fore, he  goes  evermore  towards  a  larger 
and  deeper  faith.  His  doubts  are  ever 
illustrating  this — they  usually  involve  a 
nobler  confidence  in  God  and  man  than 
the  accepted  beliefs.  The  all-encompass- 
ing, generating,  and  regulating  item  of 
man's  faith  is  his  vision  of  God.  Here  Al- 
fred Tennyson  offers  to  an  age  devoted 
to  psychological  investigation  and  the 
scientific  criticism  of  historical  docu- 
ments, a  philosophical  insight  into  the 
relations  of  nature  and  man  with  God 
and  a  consequent  ministry,  the  one  as 
reverent  as  it  is  powerful,  the  other  as 
pure  as  it  is  benign. 

No  one  will  question  for  a  moment  that 
Tennyson's  priestly  function  lies  largely 
in  welcoming  to  the  finer  consciousness 
and  aspiration  of  man,  the  Immanent 
God— The  All  In  All— of  whom  Paul 
spoke  at  Athens,  quoting  a  Greek  poet, — 
God  whose  presence  is  the  movement  of 
the  mighty  tide  of  being  and  whose  ends 
are  those  of  universal  love.  Illy  educated 
persons  have  prophesied  that  if  the  truth 
which  is  in  Pantheism  were  ever  to  enter 
the  theology  of  literature,  all  the  securi- 


Of  Recent  English  Poetry  113 

ties  and  interests  of  the  personal  con- 
science would  vanish  away  from  both 
poetry  and  prose.  Well  1  here  and  every- 
where in  his  best  verse,  a  vision  of  the 
Divine  Sovereignty  rules  in  which  the 
Transcendent  and  Immanent  God  lives 
and  creates :  and,  what  is  more,  the  be- 
liever in 

That  God,  which  ever  lives  and  loves, 
One  God,  one  law,  one  element, 
And  one  far-off  divine  event, 

To  which  the  whole  creation  moves  — 

is  the  singer  who,  thus  giving  expression 
to  a  Wordsworthian  faith  in  the  every- 
whereness  of  God,  turns  out  to  be  the 
painter  of  the  self-imposed  agony  of 
Guinevere  and  the  recorder,  in  awful 
chastity  of  phrase,  of  the  "  Vision  of  Sin." 
The  truth  is  becoming  plain  that  con- 
science can  have  no  divine  authority 
within  us,  if  conscience  be  not  itself  a 
manifestation  of  God — God's  self-evi- 
dencing life  in  man.  If  this  be  a  truism 
now,  it  would  appear  that  no  truism  ever 
so  proved  how  far  and  sadly  we  had 
strayed  from  the  truth.  Our  ministry 
ought   to   be   careful   as   to  giving   due 


114  '^^^  Higher  Ministries 

reverence  unto  the  Inner  Light — for  Ten- 
nyson, the  poet,  has  been  educating  the 
audience  of  the  preacher  ;  and  almost  no 
one  in  that  audience  has  been  stupid 
enough  to  miss  the  truth  that  God  in 
man  is  the  vitahzing  energy  of  conscience. 
I  admit  that  this  idea  of  conscience  is  in 
harmony  with  the  truth  in  the  pantheistic 
conception  of  the  universe.  But  let  it  be 
admitted  at  once  that  he  only  who  may 
write  the  psalm  of  The  Higher  Pantheism 
will  escape  the  lower  where  Fate  is  all 
there  is  of  Father.  With  Tennyson  the 
escape  is  complete ;  it  is  more  than  an 
escape,  and  we  sing  : 

"The  sun,  the  moon,  the  stars,  the  seas,  the  hills 
and  the  plains  — 
Are  not  these,  O  soul,  the  Vision  of  Him  who 
reigns  ? 

'*  Is  not  the  Vision  He  ?  tho'  He  be  not  that  which 
He  seems  ? 
Dreams  are  true  while  they  last,  and  do  we  not 
live  in  dreams  ? 

"  Earth,  these  solid  stars,  this  weight  of  body  and 
limb. 
Are  they  not  sign  and  symbol  of  thy  division 
from  Him? 


Of  Recent  English  Poetry  115 

"Dark  is  the  world  to  thee :  thyself  art  the  rea- 
son why ; 
For  is  He  not  all  but  that  which  has  power  to 
feel  '  I  am  I '  ? 

"Glory  about  thee,  without  thee;  and  thou  ful- 
fillest  thy  doom 
Making    Him  broken    gleams,    and  a  stifled 
splendour  and  gloom. 

"Speak  to  Him  thou  for  He  hears,  and  Spirit 
with  Spirit  can  meet  — 
Closer  is  He  than  breathing,  and  nearer  than 
hands  and  feet. 

*'  God  is  law,  say  the  wise;  O  soul,  and  let  us  re- 
joice, 
For  if  He  thunder  by  law  the  thunder  is  yet 
His  voice. 

"Law  is  God,  say  some:  no  God  at  all,  say  the 
fool; 
For  all  we  have  power  to  see  is  a  straight  staff 
bent  in  a  pool ; 

"  And  the  ear  of  man  cannot  hear,  and  the  eye 
of  man  cannot  see ; 
But  if  we  could  see  and  hear,  this  Vision — were 
it  not  He?" 

Take  this  idea  of  the  everywhereness  of 
God  and  ask  what  conscience  is,  if  this  is 
what  nature  is — and  much  of  our  con- 


1 1 6  The  Higher  Ministries 

fusion  ends.  We  will  cease  appealing  to 
conscience  in  one  moment  when  we  need 
to  commend  the  morals  of  a  decent 
dogma  about  God,  and  discarding  or  ma- 
ligning conscience  with  reflections  as  to 
man's  depravity  in  general  when  con- 
science turns  away  from  what  offends 
right  ideas  of  the  supreme  good. 

The  practical  conclusion  that,  if  we 
obey  what  we  see  and  feel  of  this  vision, 
all  goes  well  with  us  at  the  centre,  called 
conscience,  grows  into  a  conviction  which 
gets  its  own  habit  of  ruling  ;  and  so  con- 
science grows  with  rational  experience. 
We  are  upon  times  when  no  other  kind 
of  conscientiousness  may  be  appealed  to 
effectively.  We  may  not  all  be  able  to 
agree  that  this  is  an  adequate  statement 
of  the  true  relations  of  man  and  God : 

"Flower  in  the  crannied  wall, 
I  pluck  you  out  of  the  crannies, 
I  hold  you  here,  root  and  all,  in  my  hand, 
Little  flower — but  if  I  could  understand 
What  you  are,  root  and  all,  and  all  in  all, 
I  should  know  what  God  and  man  is," 

But  here  men  will  ever  feel  the  moral 
significance  of  Jesus'  remark  to  His  dis- 


Of  Recent  English  Poetry  117 

ciples :  "I  am  the  Vine ;  ye  are  the 
branches  "  ;  and  the  truth  coming  out  of 
Tennyson's  Hnes  and  the  word  of  the 
Master — a  truth  which  makes  for  conduct 
and  the  deciding  for  the  high  in  the 
presence  of  the  low — is  this  :  there  is  one 
goodness ;  at  least  there  are  not  two 
kinds  of  goodness.  A  life-secret  and  im- 
pulse common  to  both  makes  communion 
possible.  As  the  sap  is  the  same  in  the 
vine  and  branch,  and  the  flower  and  root 
are  of  one  another,  so  God's  life  in  man 
is  a  divine  manifestation  and  man's  true 
life  must  be  generated  by  it  and  it  must 
feed  upon  it.  This  unveils  the  seat  of  re- 
ligious authority.  Appeal  to  it  and  you 
will  so  strengthen  it,  that  it  will  be  more 
nearly  infallible  than  all  the  popes.  But 
you  ask  what  becomes  of  the  item  of 
Personality  in  all  this  new  bookkeeping 
and  inventory  of  the  Universe?  The 
answer  which  Tennyson  makes  in  phrase 
and  line  quotable  in  a  ministers'  confer- 
ence or  at  a  theological  club,  is  almost 
multitudinous.  Personality — the  sub- 
jective self — not  individuality  which  is  the 
objective  self — but  Personality  in  God 
and  in  man,  is  rescued  from  Anthropo- 


1 18  The  Higher  Ministries 

morphism  on  the  one  side  and  a  low 
Pantheism  on  the  other,  by  a  living  faith 
in  the  "  /  afn  that  I  amr  Tennyson 
therefore  sings ; 

Hallowed  be  Thy  name — Halleluiah  !  — 

Infinite  Ideality ! 

Immeasurable  Reality  1 

Infinite  Personality  ! 
Hallowed  be  Thy  name — Halleluiah  ! 

We  feel  we  are  nothing — for  all  is  Thou  and  in 

Thee; 
We  feel  we  are  something — that  also  has  come 

from  Thee ; 
We  know  we  are  nothing — ^but  Thou  wilt  help  us 

to  be. 
Hallowed  be  Thy  name — Halleluiah  ! 

In  the  wake  of  this  idea,  Tennyson  has 
much  to  gather  up  and  to  authenticate  in 
other  waves  of  experience  or  trial.  Emer- 
son may  stand  by  the  grave  of  his  child 
and  sing : 

"  The  great  heart  answered  :  weepest  thou? 
Worthier  cause  for  sorrow  wild 
If  I  had  not  taken  the  child. 
My  servant.  Death,  with  solving  rite 
Pours  finite  into  Infinite  ; 
House  and  tenant  go  to  ground, 
Lost  in  God,  in  Godhead  found." 


Of  Recent  English  Poetry  1 19 

But  this  is  not  a  complete  account  to 
the  head  and  heart  of  Tennyson.  He 
sings  : 

"  That  each,  who  seems  a  separate  whole, 
Should  move  his  rounds,  and  fusing  all 
The  skirts  of  self  again,  should  fall 
Remerging  in  the  general  Soul, 

"  Is  faith  as  vague  as  all  unsweet : 
Eternal  form  shall  still  divide 
The  eternal  soul  from  all  beside  j 
And  I  shall  know  him  when  we  meet : 

"And  we  shall  sit  at  endless  feast, 
Enjoying  each  the  other's  good  : 
What  vaster  dream  can  hit  the  mood 
Of  Love  on  earth  ?     He  seeks  at  least 

*'  Upon  the  last  and  sharpest  height. 
Before  the  spirits  fade  away, 
Some  landing-place,  to  clasp  and  say, 
*  Farewell  !     We  lose  ourselves  in  light.'  " 

This  is  a  single  illustration  of  Tenny- 
son's power  of  movement,  and  the  result 
of  his  vision  as  he  soars  through  the  cloud 
of  sorrow  and  bereavement,  trusting  the 
"  Immeasurable  Reality,  Infinite  Person- 
ality." 

To  record  the  answer  which  this  same 


120  The  Higher  Ministries 

poet  makes,  in  the  more  eloquent,  philo- 
sophical and  "  flesh  and  blood  "  manner, 
through  characters  of  the  first  importance 
who  furnish  a  full  series  of  clinics  for  all 
true  soul-physicians,  would  require  me  to 
give  the  whole  list  of  Tennyson's  men 
and  women  with  their  biographies.  The 
manner  of  Tennyson's  dealing  with  men 
and  women,  his  requirements  of  them, 
his  questions  to  them,  the  tasks  laid  upon 
them,  the  duties  suggested  and  heroisms 
offered  to  them,  and,  above  all,  their  God 
to  love  and  to  obey — these  make  the  truth 
of  Personality  sure.  At  the  highest,  it 
bleeds  as  on  Calvary.  So  also  must  the 
minister  confront  and  guide,  inspire  and 
baptize  human  beings,  as  does  the  min- 
strel. 

There  is  much  revivalistic  cant  in  our 
day  which  usually  quiets  its  extempo- 
raneous enthusiasm  in  painting  country 
fences  with  the  command  :  "  Get  right 
with  Gody  Now,  if  these  arduous  per- 
sons only  meant  so  sublime  a  task  to  be 
imposed  as  their  words  imply,  it  would 
not  offend  any  thoughtful  man  who  re- 
gards religion  seriously.  But  they  mean, 
instead,  that   you   and   I   shall   get   into 


Of  Recent  English  Poetry  121 

harmony  with  their  very  incomplete, 
somewhat  earthly  and  always  metaphys- 
ical notion  of  what  God  is  and  how  God 
acts.  The  principal  item  in  their  inven- 
tory of  Divine  attributes  is  that  of  Right- 
eousness. Even  they  will  concede  this. 
But  the  power  of  God  to  rule  must  sin- 
cerely and  effectively  appeal  to  the  ruled, 
if  it  be  a  forceful  motive  to  accept  His 
governance.  This  they  will  not  allow. 
They  are  surer  of  man's  depravity  than 
they  are  of  his  divinely  implanted  power 
to  respond  to  God,  his  Father,  But  some- 
how, in  every  strong  and  true  govern- 
ment, the  consent  of  the  governed  is  ob- 
tained. This  is  easily  proved  in  all  his- 
tory. If  there  is  nothing  of  appealing 
and  convincing  Right  in  God  unto  what 
is  held  as  Right  in  the  soul  of  man,  the 
command  to  be  or  to  become  right  for 
God's  sake  comes  in  vain.  Here,  too 
often  the  preacher  fails,  where  the  poet 
succeeds.  Your  parishioner  stays  at  home 
to  read  admiringly  a  poem  which  erects 
in  their  place  and  teaches  him  to  revere 
and  honour  the  living  altar-fires  of  Divine 
Righteousness  in  man's  spiritual  nature, 
while  you  and  I,  with  a  vicious  notion  of 


122  The  Higher  Ministries 

total  depravity  in  you  and  me,  throw  down 
these  altars  and  put  out  these  fires.  We 
leave  God  and  man  with  nothing  of  the 
magnetic  experience  which  similar  natures 
know ;  there  is  no  quickening  convic- 
tion that  our  life  is  God's  life  within  us. 
We  substitute  some  impossible  dog^a  for 
the  simple  creed  of  love's  experience  ;  and 
men  go  away,  saying  to  some  amiable 
child  of  credulity : 

"  You  say,  but  with  no  touch  of  scorn, 

Sweet-hearted,  you,  whose  light-blue  eyes, 
Are  tender  over  drowning  flies, 
You  tell  me,  doubt  is  Devil-born. 

**  I  know  not :  one  indeed  I  knew 
In  many  a  subtle  question  versed, 
Who  touch'd  a  jarring  lyre  at  first, 
But  ever  strove  to  make  it  true : 

"  Perplext  in  faith,  but  pure  in  deeds, 
At  last  he  beat  his  music  out. 
There  lives  more  faith  in  honest  doubt, 
Believe  me,  than  in  half  the  creeds. 

"  He  fought  his  doubts  and  gathered  strength, 
He  would  not  make  his  judgment  blind. 
He  faced  the  spectres  of  the  mind 
And  laid  them  :  thus  he  came  at  length 


Of  Recent  English  Poetry  123 

**  To  find  a  stronger  faith  his  own  ; 

And  Power  was  with  him  in  the  night, 
Which  makes  the  darkness  and  the  light, 
And  dwells  not  in  the  light  alone, 

"But  in  the  darkness  and  the  cloud, 
As  over  Sinai's  peaks  of  old, 
While  Israel  made  their  gods  of  gold,      » 
Altho'  the  trumpet  blew  so  loud." 

Alfred  Tennyson  appeals  to  life  and  ex- 
perience. Arthur  Hallam  was,  indeed,  a 
son  of  knowledge.  No  superficial  scep- 
ticism clouded  his  youth.  He  inherited 
the  historical  imagination  from  the  author 
of  "The  History  of  the  Middle  Ages." 
He  felt,  by  instinct,  that  there  is  something 
worth  fighting  for,  in  this  affair  of  the 
soul's  convictions.  It  is  this  "stronger 
faith  "  that  alone  will  interest  thoughtful 
men  of  the  twentieth  century.  The  age 
believes  more,  not  less,  than  its  prede- 
cessor. It  fears  not  darkness.  It  has  a 
new  understanding,  in  physics  and  meta- 
physics, of  the  nature  of  the  darkness  and 
the  light.  It  adores  no  God  whose  pres- 
ence dwells  in  the  light  alone.  It  gladly 
welcomes  the  revealing  of  the  light  which 
comes  by  way  of  the  cloud.     It  has  been 


124  '^^^  Higher  Ministries 

apprehended  by  Love — and  having  been 
apprehended,  it  seeks  "  to  apprehend,"  as 
St.  Paul  suggests.  Its  manner  towards 
truth  is  scriptural,  if  it  is  not  "  orthodox." 
It  is  in  the  air,  and  the  preacher  must 
reckon  with  the  poet's  vision  and  ex- 
perience, with  sympathetic  intelHgence  and 
candour,  else  his  pulpit  will  go  down  be- 
fore the  breath  of  a  song.  In  the  heaven 
of  Truth,  "  i/iey  shall  sing^^  and  we  can 
have  no  confidence  in  the  survival  of  any 
view  of  God,  man,  or  nature  which  will 
not  yield  itself  and  contribute  to  the  soul's 
essential  music. 

Having  arrived  at  this  understanding 
with  respect  to  Tennyson's  verse  as  with 
the  poetry  of  Matthew  Arnold,  we  may 
well  note  also  that  these  three  singers  who 
are  influencing  our  Christian  thinking  are 
all  psalmists  of  that  all-informing,  all-en- 
folding God  who  is  both  Immanent  and 
Transcendent  "in  whom  we  live  and 
move  and  have  our  being," — this  exposes 
them  to  the  charge  of  being  pantheistic  ; 
that  they  are  all  of  the  deeper  faith  in  the 
universal  self-revelation  of  God,  in  nature, 
human  history,  and  above  all,  in  humanity 
at  its  best  and  highest, — this  exposes  them 


Of  Recent  English  Poetry  125 

to  the  charge  that,  denying  any  exclusive- 
ness  of  Divine  cuhure  as  given  to  the 
Hebrew  nation,  for  example,  they  des- 
troy the  value  of  the  Bible ;  that  they  all 
entertain  reverently  and  gratefully  what 
is  called  "  the  larger  hope  "  which,  while 
it  has  fine  poetic  statement  in  Matthew 
Arnold's  sonnet  where  again  we  see  the 
Good  Shepherd  of  the  catacombs  return- 
ing bearing  on  his  shoulders  "  not  a  lamb 
but  kid  "  and  a  continuous  proclamation 
in  Browning's  verse,  has  had  its  com- 
pletest  utterance  in  Tennyson's  well- 
known  lines : 


**  Oh,  yet  we  trust  that  somehow  good 
Will  be  the  final  goal  of  ill, 
To  pangs  of  nature,  sins  of  will, 
Defects  of  doubt,  and  taints  of  blood  ; 

"That  nothing  walks  with  aimless  feet ; 
That  no  one  life  shall  be  destroyed. 
Or  cast  as  rubbish  to  the  void. 
When  God  hath  made  the  pile  complete ; 

"  That  not  a  worm  is  cloven  in  vain ; 
That  not  a  moth  with  vain  desire 
Is  shrivel' d  in  a  fruitless  fire. 
Or  but  subserves  another's  gain. 


126  The  Higher  Ministries 

**  Behold,  we  know  not  anything  ; 
I  can  but  trust  that  good  shall  fall 
At  last — far  off — at  last,  to  all, 
And  every  winter  change  to  spring. 

<<  So  runs  my  dream :  but  what  am  I  ? 

An  infant  crying  in  the  night : 

An  infant  crying  for  the  light : 

And  with  no  language  but  a  cry." 

This,  of  course,  has  disquieted  the  main- 
tainers  of  certain  time-honoured  positions, 
because,  as  they  opine,  it  removes  a  cer- 
tain hitherto  useful  moral  leverage  from 
beneath  a  world  which  must  be  lifted  into 
light  and  holiness.  It  shall  not  seem  too 
far  from  the  present  purpose  to  remark 
that  the  above-mentioned  world  is  a  world 
of  human  personalities  ;  and  personalities 
have  to  be  personally  lifted.  They  can- 
not be  lifted  mechanically  by  urgency 
from  beneath,  but,  rather,  must  be  wooed 
and  won  from  above ;  they  must  be  ex- 
alted morally  by  an  attractive  power  to 
which  they  freely  respond  by  "admira- 
tion, thought,  and  love."  No  government 
as  touching  both  father  and  child,  can 
ignore  the  fact  that,  partaking  each  of 
the  other's  nature,  there  must  be  a  con- 


Of  Recent  English  Poetry  127 

sent  upon  the  part  of  the  governed— such 
a  consent,  indeed,  upon  the  part  of  the 
child  as  develops  and  crowns  the  qualities 
of  justice  and  reason,  and  the  contempla- 
tion of  noble  ends  which  makes  the  child 
most  like  the  father.  Surely  the  tradi- 
tional view  of  everlasting  and  hopeless 
suffering  must  pay  a  heavy  bill  charged 
up  by  everything  in  the  human  which 
man  is  asked  or  commanded  to  worship 
as  Divine. 

It  is  just  at  this  point — and  it  is  even 
now  a  most  critical  one  in  our  thinking  on 
matters  religious — that  Tennyson  meets 
the  perplexed  and  true-hearted  man,  and, 
as  I  believe,  has  to  give  him  a  tonic  for 
his  faith  such  as  no  one  else  may  supply. 
Let  us  use  a  homely  figure  of  speech. 
While  we  see  both  Tennyson  and  Brown- 
ing bringing  succour  to  the  endangered 
or  sinking  craft  of  faith,  the  rope  which 
Tennyson  holds  so  firmly  as  he  breasts 
white  breakers,  carrying  its  rescue  and 
assurance  to  those  in  a  foundering  ship, 
is  woven  of  the  same  convictions,  ideas, 
and  hopes  as  that  which  Browning  grasps 
and  holds  with  stronger  hand.  Brown- 
ing's rope  is  much  larger,  let  us  confess 


128  The  Hifiher  Ministries 


&' 


but,  when  we  are  distressed  in  night  and 
fog  by  a  grinding  reef  near  shore,  Tenny- 
son's rope  is  surer  to  reach  us.  Tenny- 
son is  more  easily  seen  to  be  our  helper ; 
he  has  a  light  in  his  surf-beaten  lantern 
which  common  eyes  will  less  often  fail  to 
see.  His  way  is  that  of  our  own  minds 
more  often  and  steadily — and  he  is  less 
likely,  if  he  comes  close  to  us,  to  upset 
our  little  toiling  craft  by  his  weight  and 
rapid  motion.  These  things  being  so,  let 
us  look  into  the  message  which  will  prob- 
ably be  his  alone  to  get  into  our  thinking 
and  life  at  a  critical  hour. 

I  do  not  think,  as  may  already  be  sur- 
mised, that  his  distinctive  message  comes 
in  that  greatest  of  all  psalms  of  grief  and 
loss  and  love  and  hope  :  "  In  Memoriam." 
It  has  a  place  above  the  **  Adonais  "  of 
Shelley,  because  of  its  deeper  insight  and 
loftier  confidence.  It  is  as  much  more  in- 
forming to  other  children  of  sorrow  than 
Milton's  "  Lycidas  "  as  the  age  was  more 
introspective  and  inscrutable  to  its  own 
overstrained  eye.  It  moves  like  a  stream 
through  the  lands  where  Matthew  Arnold 
gathered  cold  dews  with  white  flowers 
which  he  has  strewn  upon  the  grave  of 


Of  Recent  English  Poetry  129 

Arthur  Hugh  Clough ;  it  increases  in 
volume  while  with  crystal  purity  it  be- 
comes recipient  of  many  spotless  and 
molten  snow-fields  descending  from  the 
lofty  solitudes  of  fear  and  truth ;  it  is 
now  a  dirge  and  now  a  hymn,  now  a 
threnody  and  now  a  psalm,  always  re- 
flecting the  shadow  of  the  oak  as  well  as 
that  of  the  bending  willow,  and  ever  mov- 
ing through  a  changeful  landscape  com- 
prising seventeen  years  of  a  valley.  It 
glides  on  widening,  winding,  cleaving  a 
way  for  itself  seaward,  until  at  length,  with 
a  rush  of  restrained  confidences,  it  enters 
the  mightier  truth  from  which  it  had  afore- 
time come  in  cloud  and  vapour — and 
no  greater  truth  ever  welcomed  the  at- 
tained harmony  of  so  many  truths  as 
this: 

"Strong  Son  of  God,  immortal  Love, 

Whom  we,  that  have  not  seen  Thy  face, 
By  faith,  and  faith  alone,  embrace. 
Believing  where  we  cannot  prove ; 

"  Thine  are  these  orbs  of  light  and  shade ; 
Thou  madest  Life  in  man  and  brute ; 
Thou  madest  Death  ;  and  lo,  Thy  foot 
Is  on  the  skull  which  Thou  hast  made. 


130  The  Higher  Ministries 

**  Thou  wilt  not  leave  us  in  the  dust : 

Thou  madest  man,  he  knows  not  why, 
He  thinks  he  was  not  made  to  die  ; 
And  Thou  hast  made  him  :  Thou  art  just. 

**  Thou  seemest  human  and  divine. 

The  highest,  holiest  manhood,  Thou  : 

Our  wills  are  ours,  we  know  not  how ; 

Our  wills  are  ours,  to  make  them  Thine." 

"In  Memoriam"  is  usually  accepted  as 
Tennyson's  best,  for  it  seems  the  com- 
pletestand  most  majestically  rhymed  pres- 
entation— after  a  noble  order,  be  it  said 
— of  his  religious  convictions  and  hopes. 
But  it  was  only  seventeen  years  in  the 
making.  This  casket  for  such  a  string  of 
gems  had  only  seventeen,  years  from  the 
time  its  plan  was  seen  until  its  key  was 
turned  in  the  enchased  lock.  *'  In  Memo- 
riam "  could  not,  therefore,  comprise  an- 
swers to  the  many  involved  questions 
which  rose  between  1831  when  he  touched 
with  moulding  power  the  legend  of  Elaine 
and  that  day,  sixty  and  more  years  after, 
when  the  world  entered  the  presence  of 
King  Arthur  for  the  last  time  with  Lord 
Tennyson  as  sponsor.  It  is  also  true  that, 
although  "  In  Memoriam  "  deals  with  much 


Of  Recent  English  Poetry  131 

that  is  most  precious  in  the  spirit  of  man, 
his  knowledge,  his  imagination,  his  reason, 
his  faith  and  his  hope,  and  all  in  the  light 
of  modern  philosophy  which  dethrones  or 
reenthrones  everything,  and  with  a  mas- 
tery of  the  modern  scientific  method  en- 
riching Tennyson  with  that  culture  and 
information  which  astonish  the  learned  of 
a  learned  age,  it  does  not  lead  us  to  that 
fact  called  conscience,  fling  us  at  its  feet 
when  the  foundations  are  made  to  shake, 
point  us  to  its  summit  when  a  fatalistic 
philosophy  has  darkened  it  with  cloud, 
and  wait  with  us  through  such  hours  of 
earthquake  as  nothing  save  conscience 
has  known  in  all  the  history  of  man's  moral 
development.  Nothing  which  man  must 
believe  in  so  sincerely,  if  he  is  to  be  and 
remain  a  man — nothing  at  least  within  the 
last  fifty  years — has  been  so  besieged  and 
so  apparently  demolished  at  times  as  has 
man's  conscience.  It  would  seem  that, 
while  a  great  poet's  masterpiece  might 
not  be  the  epic  of  conscience,  if  the  poet 
of  our  time  essayed  to  leave  a  work  which 
would  surely  hold  its  place  for  all  time  as 
a  masterpiece,  its  numbers  must  move 
between  two  permanencies,  the  broken 


132  The  Higher  Ministries 

law  of  Sinai  and  the  broken  life  of  Cal- 
vary. 

This  is  the  distinction  of  the  "  Idylls  of 
the  King."  It  is  the  achievement  of  Ten- 
nyson's genius  in  which  "  the  light  that 
never  was  on  sea  or  land,"  which  Words- 
worth saw,  bathes  that  territory  of  the  soul 
of  which  there  is  no  geography  for 
our  eyes,  and  while  mystic  vapours 
rise  from  murmuring  streams  or  clashing 
armies  wage  battle  between  enchanting 
silences,  the  truth  informing  all  of  it  is 
binding  tumultuous  and  tender  years  into 
a  drama  of  human  failure  so  deep  that  we 
lose  our  way  in  its  agonizing  defiles,  so 
bewildering  with  gleaming  accoutrement 
that  we  are  blind  to  all  reality,  unless  we 
behold  steadily — and  it  is  Tennyson's 
glory  that  he  keeps  it  before  us  and  makes 
our  eye  look  and  look  again  upon  it  at 
every  turn  in  the  long  tragic  way — the 
white  and  awful  summit  called  conscience. 
So  long  as  men  read  the  "  Idylls  of  the 
King,"  science  will  have  to  make  record 
of  a  fact  which  is  at  least  as  real  as  a  shell 
and  as  provable  as  the  working  of  any 
law.  It  is  this :  that  white  and  awful 
summit  crowns  a  grander  eminence  and 


Of  Recent  English  Poetry  133 

rests  on  a  broader  base  ;  and  it  is  not  only 
awful  and  white,  but  it  is  immovable. 
Once  more  let  us  remember  that  his  con- 
fidence in  the  ultimate  victory  of  good 
over  evil  grew  stronger ;  and  with  each 
advancing  year  Tennyson  approached 
more  reverently  and  lovingly  the  pres- 
ence of  God  as  his  finer  faith  conceived 
Him. 

Never  has  there  been  so  much  written  by 
any  poet,  save  Browning,  which  goes  to 
prove  that  in  the  test  of  conduct  which  is 
"  three-fourths  of  life  "  and  which  bears 
that  proportional  part  in  determining  the 
worth  or  worthlessness  of  our  beliefs,  and 
in  a  mind  of  the  first  quality,  there  is  some- 
thing valuable  in  the  truth  expressed  by 
what  are  called  pantheistic  writers,  like 
Hegel  and  Erigena,  Spinoza  and  Aratus  ; 
and  this  something  makes  for  the  con- 
ception of  personality.  This  will  ever  be 
paradoxical  to  those  who  have  not  felt  that 
the  most  truly  personal  moments  in  one's 
life  are  those  in  which  the  Divine  life 
reaches  the  highest  mark  ;  yes,  even  to  the 
effacing  of  all  marks  whatsoever.  Who 
doubts,  in  such  an  experience,  that  con- 
science is   God-empowered  and   is   His 


134  The  Higher  Ministries 

voice  and  presence — His  self-revelation 
in  man  ?  This  may  help  some  persons 
who  have  much  difficulty  to  see  how 
Tennyson  reinforces,  by  reinvigorating  the 
fact  and  function  of  conscience,  without 
holding  to  the  traditional  theology,  in- 
cluding Lockean  metaphysics  and  Paley's 
watch-like  world.  It  is  no  desire  or  ex- 
pectation of  mine  to  employ  Tennyson  to 
help  any  one  to  hold  any  of  this — espe- 
cially the  notion  of  conscience  which 
obtained  when  most  of  our  creeds  were 
written.  It  is  a  far  more  serious,  noble, 
and  commanding  reality — this  fact  and 
factor  called  conscience ;  and  it  stands 
with  terrible  splendour,  all  unmoved  in 
the  soul  of  one  who  believes  enough  in 
good,  not  only  to  hate  evil  but  to  antici- 
pate its  final  overthrow. 

"The  wish,  that  of  the  living  whole 
No  life  may  fail  beyond  the  grave, 
Derives  it  not  from  what  we  have 
The  likest  God  within  the  soul  ? 

**  I  falter  where  I  firmly  trod. 

And  falling  with  my  weight  of  cares 
Upon  the  great  world's  altar-stairs 
That  slope  thro'  darkness  up  to  God, 


Of  Recent  English  Poetry  I35 

*'  I  stretch  lame  hands  of  faith,  and  grope, 
And  gather  dust  and  chaff,  and  call 
To  what  I  feel  is  Lord  of  all. 
And  faintly  trust  the  larger  hope." 


The  story  of  King  Arthur  was  ten  cen- 
turies old  and  more  when  it  came  under 
the  touch  of  Alfred  Tennyson.  It  has, 
indeed,  suffered  a  sea-change  into  some- 
thing rich  and  strange ;  but  its  oceanic 
significance  still  abides.  Here  the  ele- 
mental passions  and  yearnings  have  the 
throb  of  the  infinite  behind  them ;  and 
they  beat  against  the  pristine  coasts  of 
man's  soul.  It  is  the  most  modern  thing 
coming  out  of  the  chivalry  or  mediaeval- 
ism  of  England,  because  of  the  steady 
flame  of  moral  enthusiasm  which  moves 
within  every  line  of  the  tradition  as  Lord 
Tennyson  uses  it.  Taking  unto  itself  the 
highest  interests  of  human  conduct  and 
hope,  Tennyson's  genius  is  confessedly 
ethical  in  intention.  We  find  him  here 
fusing  many  legends  into  a  unity  from 
which,  after  it  has  hardened  to  a  mirror  in 
the  lower  temperature  of  a  moral  philoso- 
phy, the  conscience  may  see  the  features  of 
itself.    No  one  but  a  great  artist  could  have 


136  The  Higher  Ministries 

compelled  so  many  elements  and  so  vari- 
ous, to  compose  a  portrait  at  once  white  as 
snow  and  pathetic  to  the  stirring  of  tears, 
without  giving  the  appearance  of  disin- 
tegrating a  strong  literary  figure  and  fact 
to  obtain  a  weak  result  in  morals.  If  Ten- 
nyson's Arthur  is  weak,  his  is  the  weak- 
ness through  which  the  soul  and  the 
world  are  made  strong.  "  Thy  gentle- 
ness hath  made  me  great " — this  is  man's 
answer  to  the  method  of  God  Himself, 
who  is  "  the  great  poet "  ;  and  Chris- 
tianity gave  the  world  nothing  so  power- 
ful as  He  Himself  who  said,  "  I,  if  I  be 
lifted  up,  will  draw  all  men  unto  Me." 
Crosses  only  are  permanent  thrones.  The 
value  of  Tennyson's  treatment  of  this 
story  lies  in  its  deeper  explication  of  the 
Christian  indictment  against  sin — deeper 
than  any  less  profound  and  searching  re- 
ligious philosophy  may  ever  dream  of. 
Here  we  will  see  that  the  horror  of  sin 
has  its  sting  in  the  attack  made  upon  the 
good  which  alone  furnishes  a  foundation 
for  the  universe. 

Arthur,  the  King,  is,  even  in  spite  of  our 
age's  deification  of  assertive  and  often 
coarse   energy,   the   expression  of  faith 


Of  Recent  English  Poetry  137 

purity  and  love.  No  one  but  an  intense 
believer  in  the  supremacy  of  conscience, 
a  poet  whose  priestly  functions  are  allied 
with  those  of  the  true  prophet,  could  have 
avoided  lessening  the  moral  effect  of  this 
great  poem  by  some  such  incorporation  as, 
for  example,  the  story  that  Modred  was 
Arthur's  natural  son,  the  child  of  Bellicent 
whom  Arthur  did  not  know  as  his  half- 
sister,  but  for  whom  he  had  an  impure 
passion.  Of  course,  Swinburne  urges 
upon  Tennyson  a  criticism  in  harmony 
with  the  less  distinctly  ethical  tendencies 
of  his  own  poems,  and  he  cannot  forgive 
the  laureate  for  refusing  to  portray  some- 
thing which  might  relax  the  grip  of  con- 
science on  Guinevere.  Let  it  be  a  flaw  in 
the  King's  character,  or  some  past  shame 
clinging  to  his  life.  It  is  entirely  in  har- 
mony with  a  down-grade  view  of  con- 
science, cynical  or  rampant  in  the  last 
fifty  years,  to  presume  that  somehow,  if 
we  knew  all,  every  Guinevere  is  "more 
sinned  against  than  sinning."  This 
Shakespearean  phrase  will  never  fit  Guin- 
evere, unless  we  abrogate  Shakespeare's 
moral  standards,  and  Tennyson's  are 
fundamentally  the  same.    The  old  British 


1^8  The  Higher  Ministries 

legends  may  sustain  Swinburne's  con- 
ception of  Arthur's  sin  and  its  developing 
retribution.  But  Tennyson's  genius  sets 
itself  to  portray,  for  an  age  whose  sur- 
viving institutions  are  threatened  with 
destruction  from  personal  wrong-doing, 
the  indubitable  features  of  Guinevere's 
falsity  and  the  disastrous  consequences 
of  her  guilt.  He  will  not  weaken  the 
effect  of  her  personal  influence  in  the 
process  of  bringing  about  the  ruin  of  the 
Round  Table,  by  discounting  the  sig- 
nificance of  the  event ;  nor  shall  its  real 
cause  be  lost  sight  of  by  a  reference  to  any 
sin  of  Arthur's  youth  as  a  collateral  for  it 
all.  He  avoids  this,  first,  by  leaving  this 
episode  to  silence  and,  secondly  and  more 
surely,  by  painting  the  history  of  this 
progressive  assertion  and  victory  of  evil 
over  good  upon  the  responsive,  sensitive 
tissue  of  the  superb  and  undisguised  soul. 
In  her  disloyalty,  and  so  in  her  remorse, 
Guinevere  stands  with  Lancelot  equally 
guilty,  and  none  of  the  laborious  prepara- 
tions which  a  timid  morality  would  make 
to  convey  opiates  or  antidotes  for  the 
acuteness  of  her  malady  are  permitted  by 
Tennyson.     Sins  are  terrible  as  results  of 


Of  Recent  English  Poetry  139 

the  disease  ;  but  such  a  disease  as  sin  it- 
self is  more  terrible  for  the  foulness  which 
such  a  frenzied  passion  breeds  in  Guine- 
vere or  Lancelot.  He  will  not  decrease 
the  weight  of  her  iniquity  or  the  bitter- 
ness of  her  woe  by  mechanical  subtrac- 
tions. The  glory  of  the  human  mind  is 
witnessed  partly  in  this — that,  intellectu- 
ally or  cesthetically,  it  would  be  inartistic 
if  Tennyson  should  do  this ;  spiritually 
and  ethically  it  would  be  an  ofTense. 

Later  on  in  this  study,  it  will  be  seen 
that  these  matters  of  conscience  and  its 
message  are  not  the  less  imperious  when 
any  such  palliative  as  an  inadequate  re- 
ligious fervour  or  a  mystical  quest  is  of- 
fered. The  ethical  teaching  of  Tennyson 
here  is  not  less  vigorous  as  he  shows  the  fu- 
tility of  superstition,  however  gorgeously 
arrayed  and  devout  it  may  be,  to  offset 
sin  like  that  of  Guinevere  and  Lancelot, 
and  the  utter  folly,  if  not  wickedness, 
of  expecting  that  form  of  religion  to  re- 
pair breaches  at  the  Round  Table  or 
otherwise  to  help  straighten  out  this 
harmed  world.  A  ministry  equal  to  such 
minstrelsy  will  see  the  peril  of  the  sinning 
soul  moving  unquietly  to  and  fro  between 


140  The  Higher  Ministries 

a  wish  that  iniquity  may  somehow  be 
proven  less  than  the  ugly  fact  against 
which  conscience  and  history  revolt,  and 
the  brainless  dream  of  a  poor  sanctity  rely- 
ing upon  poetic  ritual  or  theatrical  ardour 
at  once  externally  lovely  and  internally 
hollow.  When  pulpits  are  far  gone  astray 
from  the  awful  meaning  of  the  cross, 
which  is  a  reality  of  man's  memory  and 
of  man's  imagination — a  reality  which 
certainly  would  have  quite  faded  out  of 
both,  had  there  been  no  fearful  fact  in 
history  called  sin  to  which  that  cross 
makes  satisfactory  answer, — and  when 
ministers  assume  that  Guinevere's  wrong- 
doing may  be  accounted  for  on  any 
theory  which  makes  Arthur's  stainless 
life  and  noble  dreams  matters  of  indiffer- 
ence or  even  of  folly,  then  it  is  well  to  re- 
turn to  Tennyson,  the  minstrel,  and  behold 
him  refusing  at  the  beginning  of  his  great 
work  and  declining  over  and  over  again 
in  the  course  of  its  achievement,  any  com- 
promise on  the  part  of  the  behests  of  con- 
science as  this  inner  reality  has  appeared 
and  ruled  in  the  Bible,  Dante,  and 
Shakespeare.  No  misconduct  of  others, 
no   apparent   force   of   inner  fate  which 


of  Recent  English  Poetry  141 

mysteriously  operated  on  Guinevere,  can 
confuse  the  distinction  in  Tennyson's 
mind  and  art  between  right  and  wrong. 
If  Arthur  was  excluded  from  the  search 
of  the  Holy  Grail  because,  as  Tennyson 
thinks,  the  search  was  an  abandoning  of 
the  less  apparently  religious,  but  really 
more  holy  task  of  restoring  order  on 
earth  ;  if  Arthur  is  so  cold  and  lofty  that 
Guinevere  afterwards  says ; 

"  I  thought  I  could  not  breathe  in  that  fine  air, 
That  pure  serenity  of  perfect  light  — 
I  wanted  warmth  and  colour  which  I  found 
In  Lancelot," 

if  she  also  says  ; 

"  *To  me 
He  is  all  fault  who  hath  no  fault  at  all : 
For  who  loves  me  must  have  a  touch  of  earth  ; 
The  low  sun  makes  the  colour,'  " 

and  if  Vivien  has  a  grossness  unre- 
lieved by  any  kind  of  dignity, — Tenny- 
son is  moved  by  none  of  these.  They 
are  only  circumstances  like  those  of 
which  we  are  perpetually  reminded  by  a 
school  of  philosophers  who  would  make 


142  The  Higher  Ministries 

sin  something  less  destroying  in  its  na- 
ture and  consequences  than  it  really  is. 
Whatever  may  be  the  force  of  environ- 
ment or  the  anaesthetic  ethical  theory 
for  troublesome  reflection,  Tennyson 
never  swerves  from  the  idea  that  sin  is  a 
personal  affair,  the  missing  of  the  mark, 
indeed,  but  a  transgression  also — a  per- 
sonal revolt,  and  of  such  power  and  cer- 
tainty of  self-propagation  that  its  conse- 
quences upon  the  world  and  its  hopes 
are  never  so  awful  as  its  consequences 
upon  the  human  self-will  which  initiates 
it. 

In  the  first  poem  we  get  some  outline 
of  the  moral  beauty  in  presence  of  which 
evil  begins  to  enact  its  bold  tragedy. 
The  picture  is  as  psychologically  true  as 
a  leaf  from  the  gospels  where  we  see 
Judas  becoming  darker-souled  every  day 
in  the  light  and  presence  of  his  Christ. 
Merlin,  who  is  masterful  of  all  knowl- 
edge, who  is  ever  reminding  us  in  many 
ways  of  the  weak  but  brainy  Hamlet  of 
Shakespeare,  or  a  straying  Paracelsus  of 
Browning,  makes  a  declaration  of  King 
Arthur's  place  in  the  world,  in  words  as 
memorable   as   are   the   lambent   flames 


Of  Recent  English  Poetry  143 

which  were  said  to  have  played  around 
him  as  a  babe : 

*'  From  the  great  deep  to  the  great  deep  he  goes." 

Tennyson  may  have  never  thought,  at 
the  first,  of  the  epical  orchestration  he 
was  to  give  to  the  theme  of  King  Arthur 
and  the  Round  Table  ;  but  it  came  as  a 
necessity  to  art  and  truth.  1870  was  the 
date  of  the  publication  of  the  "  Coming  of 
Arthur."  The  date  is  also  significant  as 
that  of  Stuart  Mill's  Essays  and  Huxley's 
sketched  automaton  or  the  chess-player 
in  life.  Conscience  was  perishing  in  the 
test-tube  of  science  and  the  ratiocination  of 
philosophy.  But  here  came  a  life-picture 
which  was  more  than  an  argument  for 
conscience  ;  it  was  a  statement  of  facts 
upon  which  the  moral  universe  is  founded 
and  by  which  moral  activity  goes  on. 
This  statement  of  facts  was  a  judgment 
already  rendered  against  evil  tendencies 
of  the  time  which  were  quite  willing  to 
have  the  protection  of  the  philosophy  of 
Stuart  Mill  and  Mr.  Huxley.  Tennyson's 
mission  is  not  yet  done.  We  still  have  to 
learn  that  Arthur,  who  may  stand  for  the 
rational  soul,  is  always  threatened  in  his 


144  '^^^  Higher  Ministries 

kingdom  by  the  powers  of  sense,  by- 
pleasure  and  passion,  and  by  selfishness. 
Ours  is  a  golden  moment  like  that  when 

"  the  king  in  low  deep  tones, 
And  simple  words  of  great  authority, 
Bound  them  by  so  strait  vows  to  his  own  self. 
That  when  they  rose,   knighted  from  kneeling, 

some 
Were  pale  as  at  the  passing  of  a  ghost, 
Some  flush'd,  and  others  dazed,  as  one  who  wakes 
Half-blinded  at  the  coming  of  a  light." 

We  think  we  are  too  civilized  for  such  an 
incursion  of  brutality  as  once  laid  waste 
Arthur's  royal  dream,  but  the  truth  is 
that  our  enervated  and  tenuous  life  need 
fear   nothing  else  so  much. 

Sir  Lancelot  is  apparently  bound  to  his 
king  in  fine  seriousness. 

"  '  Thou  dost  not  doubt  me  king. 
So  well  thine  arm  hath  wrought  for  me  to-day.' 
*  Sir  and  my  liege,'  he  cried,  *  the  fire  of  God 
Descends  upon  thee  in  the  battle-field  : 
I  know  thee  for  my  king  !  '     Whereat  the  two, 
For  each  had  warded  either  in  the  fight, 
Sware  on  the  field  of  death  a  deathless  love. 
And  Arthur  said,  '  Man's  word  is  God  in  man  : 
Let  chance  what  will,  I  trust  thee  to  the  death.  '  " 


Of  Recent  English  Poetry  145 

A  careful  and  sympathetic  study  of 
Merlin  at  his  first  appearance  here  pre- 
pares us  for  finding  out  that  the  intellectual 
acumen  and  mysterious  skill  allied  to 
great  achievement  of  knowledge  at  any 
time  cannot  prove  itself  the  saviour  of 
Arthur,  or  make  Merlin  self-protective 
against  the  heat  and  breath  of  base  desire. 
Guinevere  is  hardly  ever  to  be  mistaken 
for  anything  more  nor  less  than  that  as- 
semblage of  powers  which  nestle  and 
reign  in  a  woman's  heart,  and  with  which 
every  Arthur  must  be  genuinely  wedded 
in  order  that  he  may  even  dream,  and 
much  more  that  he  may  do  what  he 
dreams,  as  he  cries  : 

'*  Then  might  we  live  together  as  one  life, 
And  reigning  with  one  will  in  everything 
Have  power  on  this  dark  land  to  lighten  it, 
And  power  on  this  dead  world  to  make  it  live." 

She  is  at  least  superb  in  capability  of 
promise. 

**  And  Arthur  said,  '  Behold,  thy  doom  is  mine. 
Let  chance  what  will,  I  love  thee  to  the  death  !  ' 
To  whom  the  queen  replied  with  drooping  eyes, 
*  King  and  my  lord,  I  love  thee  to  the  death  !  '  " 


146  The  Higher  Ministries 

Around  these  two  move  the  knights  of 
the  Round  Table.  They  stand  for  the 
lofty  faculties  of  our  humanity  with  which 
every  hopeful  vision  of  the  King  and  his 
kingdom  must  be  allied.  These  are  the 
faculties  which  are  to  enter  into  all  the 
activities  of  the  kingdom,  and  they  re- 
joice on  the  coronation  and  the  marriage 
of  King  Arthur  and  Queen  Guinevere, 
when  faith,  hope,  and  charity  stand  near, 
and  Excalibur — the  sword  of  the  Spirit 
— is  given  to  the  King  by  the  Lady  of 
the  Lake,  *'  clothed  in  white  samite, 
mystic,  wonderful."  Soon  the  war  has 
begun,  and  Arthur,  who  thus  obeys  the 
church,  is  seen  to  be  the  royal  foe  against 
the  evil  which  disorders  the  world.  It  is 
all  of  yesterday  ;  it  is  of  to-day  also. 

The  minister  of  to-day  will  join  with  the 
student  of  psychology  to  pay  homage  to 
a  minstrel  who  is  even  nearer  the  heart 
and  intellect  of  humanity  to-day,  as  men 
deal  with  the  problem  of  civilization  and 
its  methods  and  hopes,  than  he  was  when 
the  first  of  the  "  Idylls  of  the  King  "  was 
written  so  long  ago.  Tennyson's  place 
as  a  philosopher  of  ethical  phenomena  is 
surer  far  than  Mill's  or  Huxley's.     Peace 


Of  Recent  English  Poetry  147 

and  law  and  governmental  order  are  still 
to  be  brought  about  by  one  like  Arthur, 
who  cannot  work  without  love  and  who 
does  not  expect  love  to  exist  for  long 
without  work.  Now  that  we  are  in  an 
age  of  Tolstoi  and  William  Morris,  he 
must  be  more  certainly  than  ever  the  re- 
deemer of  waste  lands  and  wasted  souls. 
He  may  be  called  a  practical  statesman, 
a  constructive  reformer,  or  an  inspiring 
leader;  one  thing  is  sure,  he  will  not  be- 
lieve in  following  fantastic  and  exhaust- 
ing dreams,  the  "  wandering  fires "  of 
the  mind.  It  is  of  the  utmost  impor- 
tance that  we  should  honour  the  light  of 
that  good  sense  in  Arthur's  eye  as  he 
looks  forward  to  the  time  when  he  shall 
stand  between  the  two  perils  ;  on  the  one 
side  the  iniquity  of  his  own  court,  and 
on  the  other  side,  the  fascinating  super- 
stition and  fanaticism  of  those  who  leave 
the  world's  work  following  useless 
visions.     He  cries : 

"  O  ye  stars  that  shudder  over  me 
O  earth  that  soundest  hollow  under  me 
Vext  with  waste  dreams  !  " 

When  Lancelot  appears,  we  are  struck 


148  The  Higher  Ministries 

with  his  full  and  convincing  humanity. 
The  cup  of  his  Ufe  fairly  overflows  with 
wine. 

Here  is  King  Arthur's  first  address  to 
his  manhood : 

"  '  Lancelot,  my  Lancelot,  thou  in  whom  I  have 
Most  joy  and  most  affiance,  for  I  know 
What  thou  hast  been  in  battle  by  my  side, 
And  many  a  time  have  watched  thee  at  the  tilt 
Strike  down  the  lusty  and  long  practiced  knight. 
And  let  the  younger  and  unskilled  go  by 
To  win  his  honour  and  to  make  his  name, 
And  loved  thy  courtesies  and  thee,  a  man 
Made  to  be  loved  ;   but  now  I  would  to  God, 
Seeing  the  homeless  trouble  in  thine  eyes. 
Thou  couldst  have  loved  this  maiden,  shaped,  it 

seems, 
By  God  for  thee  alone,  and  from  her  face, 
If  one  may  judge  the  living  by  the  dead, 
Delicately  pure  and  marvellously  fair, 
Who  might  have  brought  thee,  now  a  lonely  man, 
Wifeless  and  heirless,  noble  issue,  sons 
Born  to  the  glory  of  thy  name  and  fame, 
My  knight,  the  great  Sir  Lancelot  of  the  Lake.  '  " 

Even  though  at  last  we  see  that 

"  His  honour  rooted  in  dishonour  stood, 
And  faith  unfaithful  kept  him  falsely  true," 


Of  Recent  English  Poetry  149 

— even  then  the  pure  Elaine  may  half 
adore  him,  for 

"  Marred  as  he  was,  he  seemed  the  goodliest  man 
That  ever  among  ladies  ate  in  hall. 
And  noblest,  when  she  lifted  up  her  eyes. 
However  marred,  of  more  than  twice  her  years, 
Seamed  with  an  ancient  sword-cut  on  the  cheek, 
And  bruised  and  bronzed,  she  lifted  up  her  eyes 
And  loved  him,  with  that  love  which  was  her 
doom." 

What  a  height  to  fall  from  !  How  deep 
must  be  any  hell  corresponding  to  such 
a  heaven  of  power  and  possibility. 
When  the  King  sends  him  to  fetch 
Guinevere,  after  Arthur  and  Lancelot 
have  fought  against  rebellious  Kings, 
saved  each  other's  lives  and  plighted  an 
eternal  love,  we  are  aware  that  more  than 
chemic  forces  are  at  work  in  this  solution 
which  may  throw  down  an  unwelcome 
precipitate.  We  feel  that  we  have  come 
upon  an  event  in  the  lives  of  all  of  these 
persons  at  court  which  will  reveal  their 
souls,  lighten  up  the  sky  above  them  to  a 
higher  glory,  or  dig  deep  an  abyss  of  ruin 
below  to  a  profounder  hell  than  mediaeval 
theology  ever  pictured. 


150  The  Higher  Ministries 

We  looked  for  the  king  when 

**  Lancelot  passed  away  among  the  flowers, 
(For  then  was  latter  April)  and  returned 
Among  the  flowers,  in  May,  with  Guinevere," 

and  we  did  not  anticipate  that  Guinevere 
would  ever  characterize  her  Arthur  as 

"A  moral  child  without  the  craft  to  rule." 

These  three  persons  have  each  their 
share  of  what  we  call  human  nature, 
and  their  tragedy  is  possible  in  every 
age  like  our  own  which  Tennyson,  even 
now,  instructs  against  its  low-browed 
vulgarity  of  both  money  and  penury,  its 
studious  meannesses  and  its  unequalled 
heroisms  ;  its  thick-breathed  indifferences 
and  the  intrusive  gospelizing  of  its  scep- 
ticism. It  is  scepticism — doubt  as  to  the 
worth  of  goodness  which  willingly  con- 
fuses it  with  anything  less  self-revealing 
than  itself  in  the  experience  of  conscience. 
This  scepticism  is  not  always  aware  of 
itself  in  pulpits,  where  it  is  as  poisonous 
in  the  statement  of  the  untruth  which  is 
in  Pantheism  and  which  relieves  us  of 
personal  responsibility,  as  it  is  in  the  form 


Of  Recent  English  Poetry  151 

of  offering  to  impurity  and  injustice  in- 
adequate conceptions  of  right  and  wrong. 
These  are  each  and  all  disastrous  alike  to 
excellent  literature  and  noble  lives. 

Against  these  all,  with  the  Round  Table 
now  established  and  the  Knights  riding 
away  to  subdue  the  oppressor,  Tennyson 
gives  a  more  radiant  meaning  to  this 
Golden  Time.  It  is  not  a  place  or  era  for 
worldlings  or  weaklings ;  and  in  the  se- 
cond of  these  poems,  "  Gareth  and  Ly- 
nette,"  there  works  a  virility  with  tenacity 
of  mind  which  accords  with  human  life. 
No  delicacy  or  enchantment  may  hide 
from  us  the  encounter  at  Castle  Perilous 
or  the  nobility  of  the  strife  against  all 
fleshly  appetite.  Soon  after  Tennyson 
has  pictured  to  us  the  kingdom  of  Arthur 
and  we  are  full  of  anticipation  as  to  the 
future  of  the  Round  Table,  an  anticipation 
made  vigorous  by  the  gay  energy  of 
Gareth,  with  what  singular  invasion  of 
distrust,  through  the  Idyll  called  "  Enid," 
the  serpentine  rumour  slides  in,  which 
breathes  the  first  nameless  poison  in  an 
air  which  all  must  live  in  and  which  only 
a  little  time  ago  was  so  sunny  and  benign  I 
The  change  is  known  to  any  close  student 


l^"!  The  Higher  Ministries 

of  the  psychology  of  sinning  and  the 
history  of  its  impersonal  result  on  social 
units.  The  cause  of  it  is  the  just  suspi- 
cion that  Guinevere  and  Lancelot  are 
lovers  and  false  to  King  Arthur. 

If  ever  minister  must  go  to  minstrel  in 
order  to  discover  the  taint  of  death  with 
which  an  atmosphere  may  become 
charged  at  the  first,  in  which  even  yet 
beings  may  live,  though  uncertainly  and 
dreamily,  let  him  find  it  in  that  hour 
when  Enid  is  exalted  by  the  attachment 
of  Guinevere,  and  when  the  very  loftiness 
of  such  a  position  in  life  makes  the  evil 
report  to  which  any  one  gives  currency  a 
baser  coin  of  sinister  magnitude,  because 
it  goes  through  such  good  and  bad  hands. 
Let  him  feel  the  strain  when  a  sincere 
purpose  to  do  right  and  to  be  right,  em- 
bodied in  some  Geraint,  strives  to  main- 
tain its  vitality  in  the  foul  air.  This  is 
not  hell  perhaps  ;  but  this  is  a  way  to  it. 
Even  here  the  path  is  hot ;  grass  and 
bloom  are  parched.  Not  an  external, 
mechanical,  penal  hell  in  this,  but  it  is 
more  awful  because  it  is  consequential, 
and  it  is  more  abiding  because  the  soul 
builds  it   of   the  soul's  self.     Here    is  a 


Of  Recent  English  Poetry  153 

picture  of  the  hatefulness  of  every  such 
an  influence  as  this  which  has  aheady 
fallen  upon  everything  that  is  made 
more  abominable  to  the  conscience  which 
Tennyson  keeps  in  training  through 
these  poems.  It  is  more  abominable  be- 
cause Guinevere's  reputation  for  virtue, 
which  has  now  been  attacked,  is  always 
finely  protected  by  the  white  radiance  of 
the  King,  the  no  less  snowy  purity  of 
Enid,  and  the  firm  attitude  which  Geraint 
takes  as  against  all  reports  and  all  suspi- 
cions. Tennyson  here  restrains  himself 
mightily  ;  but  he  cannot  keep  us  from 
feeling  the  pathos  of  the  situation. 

Though  it  is  early  in  the  story,  the  past 
has  wonderfully  quickened  our  sense  of  the 
destructiveness  of  any  faithlessness  like 
this  of  the  Queen  and  Lancelot.  Tenny- 
son may  be  criticised  for  the  insanity  of 
Geraint's  later  jealousy,  but  he  will  not  be 
criticised  by  men  who  know  human  life 
and  perceive  the  wreckage  wrought  by 
Vivien,  not  so  much  because  of  what  she 
herself,  the  loose-tonged  siren,  has  done, 
or  what  she  may  be  seeking,  but  because 
of  the  more  wretched  disaster  wrought  by 
the  Queen.     This  disaster  lies  in  the  fact 


154  '^^^  Higher  Ministries 

that  she  has  unbound  the  hitherto  man- 
ageable passions  which  are  ever  hiding 
in  decencies,  until  some  great  one  has 
fallen  low  ;  and  then  they  yelp  with  cynical 
joy  that  man  is  the  child  of  hell,  not  of 
heaven.  Guinevere's  shame  makes  such 
a  woman  as  Vivien  shameless.  Her 
ecstasy  of  conquest  comes  when,  not  even 
the  Queen  dare  restrain  her  festival  at 
the  ruin  of  human  hope.  The  enchant- 
ress had  failed  with  the  King  himself. 
As  that  apparently  cold  and  white  being 
paused  and  seemed  for  an  instant  about 
to  melt  before  her,  her  fires  were  quenched 
in  the  few  crystal  drops  which  fell  in  the 
chill  damp  air.  On  the  other  hand,  the 
deadly  charm  by  which  mere  intellect 
always  falls  into  the  meshes  prepared  by 
passion  is  still  hers. 

Here  we  see  the  saying  illustrated  : 

"  For  men  at  most  differ  as  heaven  and  earth, 
But  women,  worst  and  best,  as  Heaven  and  Hell." 

It  is  only  a  stronger  picture  of  the  weak- 
ness of  intellect  alone,  added  to  the  Hamlet 
of  Shakespeare  and  the  Paracelsus  of 
Browning,  when  we  see  Merlin  in  the 
hands  of  Vivien. 


Of  Recent  English  Poetry  155 

"  And  Vivien  ever  sought  to  work  the  charm 
Upon  the  great  Enchanter  of  the  Time, 
As  fancying  that  her  glory  would  be  great 
According  to  his  greatness  whom  she  quench' d." 

Geraint,  with  his  unnecessary  jealousy,  is 
the  product  intellectually  of  that  unrea- 
soning iniquity  which  ever  communicates 
its  madness  to  the  atmosphere.  As  we 
see  him,  we  can  say  with  Tennyson : 

"  O  purblind  race  of  miserable  men. 
How  many  among  us  at  this  very  hour 
Do  forge  a  lifelong  trouble  for  ourselves 
By  taking  true  for  false,  or  false  for  true — " 

Geraint  is  not  a  great  person  ;  but  we 
begin  to  see  in  his  confusion,  the  impos- 
sibility of  Arthur's  kingdom  resting  for 
long,  even  upon  the  foundations  of  human 
nature,  for  they  are  restless  and  disturbed, 
and  certain  malevolent  acids  are  in  the 
air  pulling  the  structure  down.  All  this 
makes  a  searching  appeal  to  us,  as  we 
try  once  more  to  see  : 

*'  Clear  honour  shining  like  the  dewy  star 
Of  dawn,  of  faith  in  their  great  King,  with  pure 
Affection,  and  the  light  of  victory. 
And  glory  gain'd,  and  ever  more  to  gain." 


1^6  The  Higher  Ministries 

Sad  as  Geraint's  heart  is,  in  fearing  that 
his  wife  Enid  must  suffer  reproach  as  the 
Queen's  friend  because  of  the  suspicions 
against  the  Queen  herself,  the  picture  of 
his  mental  weakness  is  quite  as  appealing. 
Yet  it  is  weak  indeed  compared  to  another 
picture  rendered  here — the  picture  of  this 
pervasive  satanic  influence  blighting  all 
hope  and  endeavour  ;  and  the  man  comes 
upon  death's  spectral  hour,  while  yet  'tis 
true  that 

'<  Never  yet,  since  high  in  Paradise 
O'er  the  four  rivers  the  first  roses  blew. 
Came  purer  pleasure  unto  mortal  kind 
Than  lived  thro'  her,  who  in  that  perilous  hour 
Put  hand  to  hand  beneath  her  husband's  heart, 
And  felt  him  hers  again  :  she  did  not  weep, 
But  o'er  her  meek  eyes  came  a  happy  mist 
Like  that  which  kept  the  heart  of  Eden  green 
Before  the  useful  trouble  of  the  rain." 

Even  more  masterful  in  his  man- 
agement of  light  and  shade  does  Tenny- 
son, the  artist  as  well  as  the  moralist,  be- 
come when  he  portrays  through  Balin  and 
Balan  a  violent  temper  exiled  from  the 
Round  Table,  now  restored,  now  lost 
again  unto  many  struggles.  Balin  ap- 
peals strongly  to  a  true  ethical  philos- 


Of  Recent  English  Poetry  157 

ophy.  He  strives  for  character,  because 
he  beholds  constantly  upon  his  shield 
nothing  less  than  the  Queen's  crown.  Is 
there  anything  more  true  in  the  history 
of  such  an  iniquity,  which  winds  itself 
down  from  some  high  source  and  glides 
in  and  on  until  it  encircles  all  human  in- 
terests in  a  community,  than  what  follows 
when  even  humble  heroisms  die  at  birth 
and  truly  maddened  is  dependent  aspira- 
tion ?  Having  heard  of  the  falsity  of  the 
Queen  to  the  King  and  that  of  Lancelot, 
from  whom  as  a  great  knight  Balin  has 
sought  to  learn  gentleness,  his  frenzied 
wrath  hastens  to  trample  his  shield. 
Nothing  is  so  terrible  as  a  cheated  con- 
fidence. He  shrieks  so  like  the  Demon  of 
the  Wood,  that,  attacked  by  his  brother, 
they  kill  each  other.  Conscience  was 
present  when 

"  Balan  answered  low, 
*  Good-night,    true  brother   here  !  Good-morrow 

there  ! 
We  two  were  born  together,  and  we  die 
Together  by  one  doom  :  '  and  while  he  spoke 
Closed  his  death-drowsing  eyes,   and   slept  the 

sleep 
With  Balin,  either  lock'd  in  either 's  arms," 


158  The  Higher  Ministries 

and  conscience  is  not  less  luridly  re- 
vealing or  more  assuredly  eloquent  than 
when  we  discover  Vivien  standing  silently 
by — this  Vivien  who  has  removed  their 
helms  that  each  may  know  the  other  in 
death. 

But  there  is  a  picture  even  more 
deeply-toned  than  this,  in  this  series  of 
richly  coloured  works  of  genius,  and  that 
is  unequalled  for  its  teaching  to  a  time 
like  our  own  disposed  to  be  prouder  of 
feats  of  the  intellect  than  of  warmth  or 
purity  of  heart — I  mean  the  portrait  of  the 
philosopher-magician,  Merlin,  while  his 
character  is  under  the  disintegrating  in- 
fluence of  the  enchantress  Vivien  who 
now  comes  forth  having  tested  the  charm 
which  Tennyson  has  described.  There 
is  a  likeness  in  these  so  seemingly  unlike 
characters.  Both  rely  much  on  enchant- 
ment. Merlin  enchants  by  exhausting 
the  intellect :  Vivien  enchants  by  empty- 
ing the  heart.  The  fire  of  Vivien's  heart, 
breaking  out  through  and  increasing  by 
consuming  the  fuel  of  her  sensual  nature, 
constantly  growing  fiercer  by  the  current 
of  air  thus  set  astir,  is  so  much  more  pow- 
erful  for  invasion  than  the  coldness  of 


Of  Recent  English  Poetry  159 

Merlin's  mentality  is  for  resistance,  that 
the  latter's  molten  personality  is  licked  up 
on  parched  ground, 

*' And  lissome  Vivien,  holding  by  his  heel, 
Writhed  towards  him,  slided  up  his  knee  and 

sat, 
Behind  his  ankle  twined  her  hollow  feet 
Together,  curved  an  arm  about  his  neck, 
Clung  like  a  snake ;  and  letting  her  left  hand 
Droop  from  his  mighty  shoulder,  as  a  leaf. 
Made  with  her  right  a  comb  of  pearl  to  part 
The  lists  of  such  a  beard  as  youth  gone  out 
Had  left  in  ashes." 

But  she  wishes  something  more  and  seeks 
it  through  one  of  the  long  besiegings  of 
which  passion  never  tires.  She  knows 
enough  to  sing 

'♦  In  Love,  if  Love  be  Love,  if  Love  be  ours, 
Faith  and  unfaith  can  ne'er  be  equal  powers : 
Unfaith  in  aught  is  want  of  faith  in  all. 

"  It  is  the  little  rift  within  the  lute, 
That  by  and  by  will  make  the  music  mute. 
And  ever  widening  slowly  silence  all." 

Strangely  enough,  some  of  the  wisest  of 
earth  and  the  most  eminent  in  intellect 
have   fallen   before  such  as  Vivien  just 


l6o  The  Higher  Ministries 

when  Vivien  becomes  the  example  of  those 
who 

"Inflate  themselves  with  some  insane  delight 
And  judge  all  Nature  from  her  feet  of  clay." 

She  gathers  an  awful  pre-natal  remem- 
brance into  her  quiver  of  poisoned  arrows 
and  sends  it  forth  to  complete  her  half- 
fiendish  joy  at  the  downfall  of  Merlin : 

"  '  My  father  died  in  battle  against  the  king, 
My  mother  on  his  corpse  in  open  field  ; 
She  bore  me  there,  for  born  from  death  was  I 
Among  the  dead  and  sown  upon  the  wind  — 
And  then  on  thee  !  '  " 

The  sorrowful  fact  is  that  such  judg- 
ments have  their  possibility  lying  back  a 
long  way,  even  in  the  sin  of  Guinevere 
and  Lancelot.  To  show  this  is  to  trace 
the  sinfulness  of  sin  to  its  origin  in  the 
responsible  personality.  Such  is  Tenny- 
son's philosophy. 

In  the  Idyll  of  "  Lancelot  and  Elaine," 
the  poorness,  as  well  as  the  richness,  of 
our  humanity  is  strongly  and  subtly  de- 
picted. It  is  a  fearful  thing  to  think  of 
Elaine's  defeat  in  contrast  with  Vivien's 


Of  Recent  English  Poetry  161 

even  temporary  triumph.  The  utter 
chastity  of  the  one — is  it  sHghtly  nega- 
tive ?  Has  it  the  purity  of  fire  with  all 
its  force  or  the  purity  of  snow  only  ? 
Whatever  be  the  answer,  quivering  black 
is  never  like  this  which  may  be  "dark 
with  excess  of  light "  only.  Innocence 
may  be  as  uninteresting  to  Lancelot  as 
Arthur's  "white  flower  of  a  blameless 
life"  is  to  Guinevere.  These  surmises 
come  with  life's  problems  while  Vivien's 
lust  grows  hate  and  Elaine's  love  has  a 
snowy  lily  for  bloom  called  purity.  If 
one  must  have  the  biography  of  a  cynical 
woman,  let  him  watch  Vivien's  career. 
If  one  will  learn  the  tragedy  of  inno- 
cence, not  the  epic  of  holiness,  he  must 
live  in  Elaine's  fantasy — the  spiritual 
fragrance  of  the  woman-soul — and  stag- 
ger on,  or  rise  on  wings,  with  her  spirit 
even  after  her  death  when  the  diamonds 
fall  into  the  river, 

"And  down  they  flash'd,  and  smote  the  stream. 
Then  from  the  smitten  surface  flash'd  as  it  were, 
Diamonds  to  meet  them,  and  they  pass'd  away." 

It  is  with  the  transformation  of  those 
gems  to  tears  that  we  discover  this,  that 


i62  The  Higher  Ministries 

her  girHsh  heart  wrecked  itself  against 
the  Lancelot  who  could  say  : 

♦*  Had  I  chosen  to  wed, 
I  had  been  wedded  earlier,  sweet  Elaine ; 
But  now  there  never  will  be  wife  of  mine." 

Only  such  a  woman,  when  Lancelot  is 
wounded,  could  witness  to  the  sinfulness 
of  sin,  as 

"Through  her  own  side  she  felt  the  sharp  lance 
go." 

Only  such  a  man  as  Lancelot  himself 
ever  may  give  a  true  account  of  his 
stained  and  faithless  self.     He  cries  out: 

"  *  Alas  for  Arthur's  greatest  knight,  a  man 
Not  after  Arthur's  heart  !     I  needs  must  break 
These  bonds  that  so  defame  me :  not  without 
She  wills  it :  would  I,  if  she  willed  it  ?     Nay, 
Who  knows  ?     But  if  I  would  not,  then  may  God, 
I  pray  Him,  send  a  sudden  angel  down 
To  seize  me  by  the  hair  and  bear  me  far. 
And  fling  me  deep  in  that  forgotten  mere. 
Among  the  tumbled  fragments  of  the  hills.'  " 

If  now  we  have  learned  what  a  ruin 
any  such  crowned  and  beautiful  iniquity 
may  achieve,  and  if,  like  the  knights  of 


Of  Recent  English  Poetry  163 

the  Round  Table,  we  turn  from  it  all, 
Tennyson  is  yet  with  the  human  soul, 
ever  faithful  and  ever  true.  Now  even  the 
knights  and  ladies  must  turn  to  some- 
thing, and  they  obey  a  psychological  law 
in  turning,  by  a  certain  reactionary  proc- 
ess, to  religion  and  to  that  form  of  it 
which  most  ministers  to  the  sensuous 
forces  whose  baleful  activity  this  hot  and 
luxurious  atmosphere  had  excited.  There 
is  a  world  of  teaching  here  for  the  true 
minister  unto  men  like  ourselves.  Re- 
ligion is  never  so  contemptible  as  when 
it  offers  a  retreat  from  morality.  These 
persons  of  the  court,  however,  must  find 
such  a  retreat,  for  they  have  abhorred  and 
hated  stern  morality.  Excitements  of  a 
supernatural  character  are  the  demand  of 
souls  who,  weary  of  the  high-pitched 
monotony  of  sin  and  brought  in  sight  of 
its  misery,  disdain  common  duties  wait- 
ing to  be  done.  Some  mystic  or  ascetic 
gymnastic  must  be  appealed  to,  that  pas- 
sion of  flesh  may  hide  itself  in  the  pas- 
sion of  religion.  What  philosopher  has 
been  truer  to  our  inner  history  than  our 
poet  ?  These  chief  persons  of  Arthur's 
court  were  not  a  little  touched  with  what 


164  The  Higher  Ministries 

is  called  the  insanity  of  genius.  Ordinary 
laws  were  too  commonplace  for  them. 
Society  and  institutions — and  Tenny- 
son is  the  singer  of  the  worth  of  these — 
are  never  sacred  to  their  unrestrained  ro- 
manticism of  desire.  The  thrill  and 
wonder  of  the  miraculous  must  be  had,  to 
give  a  gleam  to  heavy  eyes  and  ecstasy 
to  half-exhausted  sensibilities.  Tenny- 
son's account  of  all  this,  in  their  effort  to 
escape  the  results  of  sensuality  by  adopt- 
ing sensuousness  in  religious  life  by  way 
of  a  sensational  search  for  the  Holy 
Grail,  is  the  wisest  and  fearfulest  indict- 
ment ever  made  against  a  theatric  form 
of  religion  as  a  refuge  for  man  when  he 
has  failed  to  obey  the  religion  of  duty 
and  righteousness. 

Here  appears  the  grandeur  of  pu- 
ritanism  with  all  its  lack  of  charm  and  art, 
its  baldness  and  its  antipathy  for  mere 
gesture  and  costume  in  piety.  Tennyson 
will  not  permit  us  to  believe  that  the 
King  joins  not  in  this  search  for  the 
Holy  Grail — though  Sir  Gawain  is 
disloyal  and  Lancelot  has  felt  remorse — 
because  the  King  has  long  ago  sinned. 
His    King  Arthur  had   a  royal   reason 


Of  Recent  English  Poetry  165 

within  himself.  Tennyson  is  too  true  to 
psychological  conditions  following  years 
of  stainless  life,  to  accord  with  any  tradi- 
tion or  his  vapid  critics  at  this  point.  He 
will  colour  for  us  the  Year  of  Miracle  as 
has  not  been  painted  since  Tintoretto. 
The  heaven  of  heavens  will  yield  him  hues 
for  his  high  portrayal  of  souls  engaged 
in  rapturous  moral  blundering.  His  Per- 
civale  may  suggest  with  a  dauntless 
realism  the  reflected  accounts  of  those 
ecstasies  usually  oblivious  of  simple 
duties  undone.  But  his  King  Arthur, 
never  so  kingly  as  now,  like  his  Christ 
who,  when  His  disciples  were  disputing 
about  their  occupancy  of  the  twelve 
thrones  in  the  upper  room  at  Jerusalem 
just  before  the  Crucifixion,  flashed  both 
a  human  and  divine  light  upon  all  of  it 
and  took  a  towel  to  wash  the  feet  of  the 
disputants — King  Arthur  will  banish 
visions,  if  need  be,  though  he  has  more 
of  these  than  all  of  them  ;  and  he  who  is 
so  royal  in  soul-fibre  and  experience  that 
he  knows  the  sublimity  of  duty  even 
when  his  fortunes  have  waned  to  a  shred 
of  hope — he  will  not  play  or  treat  with 
visions,  his  task  being  always  in  his  eye  : 


i66  The  Higher  Ministries 

"And  some  among  you  held,  that  if  the  King 
Had  seen  the  sight  he  would  have  sworn  the 

vow : 
Not  easily,  seeing  that  the  King  must  guard 
That  which  he  rules,  and  is  but  as  the  hind 
To  whom  a  space  of  land  is  given  to  plough, 
Who  may  not  wander  from  the  allotted  field 
Before  his  work  be  done ;  but,  being  done, 
Let  visions  of  the  night  or  of  the  day 
Come,   as  they  will ;    and  many  a  time  they 

come, 
Until  this  earth  he  walks  on  seems  not  earth. 
This  light  that  strikes  his  eyeball  is  not  light, 
This  air  that  smites  his  forehead  is  not  air. 
But  vision — yea,  his  very  hand  and  foot  — 
In  moments  when  he  feels  he  cannot  die, 
And  knows  himself  no  vision  to  himself, 
Nor  the  high  God  a  vision,  nor  that  One 
Who  rose  again :  ye  have  seen  what  ye  have 

seen." 

Against  this  "  clear-shining  after  rain," 
how  sullenly  moves  the  fool  remembered 
from  "The  Last  Tournament,"  who  ad- 
umbrates that  ray  of  light  which  always 
falls  on  love  and  service.  The  end  comes. 
The  dish  once  in  use  at  the  Last  Supper 
of  Jesus  with  His  disciples,  Joseph's 
treasured  last  drop  of  the  blood  which 
fell  to  him  from  the  Christ's  riven  side, 


Of  Recent  English  Poetry  167 

the  sacramental  efficacy  of  the  Grail  are 
not  of  supreme  worth  compared  with 
King  Arthur's  devotion  to  common 
duties.  As  the  whole  epic  moves  to- 
wards a  conclusion,  we  learn  much.  We 
learn  that  while  heaven  is  attractive  to 
religious  souls,  earth  is  the  place  to  win 
heaven  ;  that  passionate  purity  alone  may 
weave  of  a  maiden's  hair  a  girdle  for 
Galahad,  the  warrior,  and  he  alone  may 
win  the  sight  of  the  Grail,  as  did  the  nun, 
Percivale's  sister;  that  Galahad  never 
retires  from  the  world  of  duties  and  tasks  ; 
that  while  Merlin  may  fear  to  sit  in  the 
chair  where  men  lose  themselves,  Galahad 
cries  :  **  If  I  lose  myself,  I  save  myself "  ; 
and  that,  of  course,  he  clings  to  the  thing 
which  never  leaves  his  sight  or  thought, 
and  so,  as  he  says,  he  has  rode. 

"Shattering  all  evil  customs  everywhere. 
It  past  thro'  Pagan  realms  and  made  them  mine, 
And  clashed  thro'  Pagan  hordes  and  bore  them 

down, 
And  broke  thro'  all,  and  in  the  strength  of  thi* 
Came  victor." 

But  where  is  Lancelot  ?    The  King  in' 
quires : 


]68  The  Higher  Ministries 

"  'Thou,  too,  my  Lancelot,  my  friend. 
Our  mightiest,  hath  this  quest  availed  for  thee  ?  '  " 

This  is  his  sad  reply  : 

•''Our   mightiest  1  '    answered  Lancelot,  with  a 

groan ; 
'  O  King,  my  friend,  if  friend  of  thine  I  be, 
Happier  are  those  that  welter  in  their  sin, 
Swine  in  the  mud,  that  cannot  see  for  slime, 
Slime  of  the  ditch  :  but  in  me  lived  a  sin 
So  strange,  of  such  a  kind,  that  all  of  pure, 
Noble,  and  knightly  in  me  twined  and  clung 
Round  that  one  sin,  until  the  wholesome  flower 
And  poisonous  grew  together,  each  as  each, 
Not  to  be  plucked  asunder,'  " 

and  his  heart  sobs : 

*"  O  yet  methought  I  saw  the  Holy  Grail, 
All  palled  in  crimson  samite,  and  around, 
Great  angels,  awful  shapes,  and  wings  and  eyes. 
And  but  for  all  my  madness  and  my  sin. 
And  then  my  swooning,  I  had  sworn  I  saw 
That  which  I  saw ;  but  what  I  saw  was  veiled 
And  covered  ;  and  this  quest  was  not  for  me.'  " 

The  Holy  Grail  has  been  seen,  but  it 
does  not  save.  The  Round  Table  is 
demolished.     Lancelot  and  Guinevere  are 


Of  Recent  English  Poetry  169 

torn  apart  by  forces  they  have  themselves 
nursed  with  fondness. 

"The  queen 
Looked  hard  upon  her  lover,  he  on  her ; 
And  each  foresaw  the  dolorous  day  to  be  : 
And  all  talk  died,  as  in  a  grove  all  song 
Beneath  the  shadow  of  some  bird  of  prey ; 
Then  a  long  silence  came  upon  the  hall, 
And   Modred   thought,     '  The   time  is  hard   at 
hand.'  " 

And  Arthur,  the  King,  what  of  him  ? 

"  That  night   came  Arthur  home,  and  while  he 

climbed, 
All  in  a  death-dumb  autumn-dripping  gloom, 
The  stairway  to  the  hall,  and  look'd  and  saw 
The  great  Queen's  bower  was  dark, — about  his 

feet 
A  voice  clung  sobbing  till  he  questioned  it, 
'  What  art  thou  ?  '  and  the  voice  about  his  feet 
Sent  up  an  answer,  sobbing,  '  I  am  thy  fool. 
And  I  shall  never  make  thee  smile  again.'  " 

Yet  is  this  all  ?  Is  Tennyson  untrue 
to  the  words :  "  Where  sin  abounded, 
there  grace  did  much  more  abound "  ? 
Surely  not.  Within  certain  limits  of  time, 
we  have  swept  through  this  gallery  of 
pictures.     A  definite,  coherent,  powerful 


lyo  The  Higher  Ministries 

philosophy  of  Hfe  keeps  them  all  upon 
the  walls  of  the  soul.  At  length,  we  come 
to  the  dreadful  conclusion  of  sin's  logical 
development.  Not  to  a  hopeless  end, 
however,  have  we  come.  There  is  hope 
when  sin  consumes  itself  in  its  defiance 
of  love.  Even  now  it  falters  and  sickens 
and  sobs  its  repentance.  Tristam  on  the 
day  of  the  last  tournament  seeks  the  prize, 
and — O  hideousness  of  irony  in  the  annal 
of  sin  ! — Lancelot  asks  him  :  "  Art  thou 
the  purest,  brother?"  only  to  be  seared 
by  the  reply  :  "  Be  happy  in  your  fair 
Queen,  as  I  in  mine."  The  rain  comes 
and  women  scoff.  It  is  all  they  can  do 
now.  Arthur  as  a  King  may  yet  serve 
only  to  make  the  cause  of  his  disaster 
more  visible.  Lancelot  is  whipped  "  into 
waste  fields  far  away,"  with  scarred  ele- 
ments of  nobleness  in  him  even  yet.  But 
the  real  world  has  vanished,  though  hearts 
beat  still.  And  now  the  ruin  appears, 
for  light  divine  falls  into  these  burned- 
out  aisles  and  upon  the  strewn  terraces, 
yet  a  cold  mist 

"  Like  a  face-cloth  to  the  face 
Clung  to  the  dead  earth,  and  the  land  was  still." 


Of  Recent  English  Poetry  171 

All  the  rhythmic  strength  of  Tennyson, 
with  pellucid  sympathy  and  an  accuracy 
of  ethical  self-command  which  must  be 
studied  to  be  understood,  is  devoted  to 
the  record  of  the  self-destruction  of  this 
germ  of  desire  which  for  so  long  has  de- 
veloped its  virulent  quality.  The  true 
observer  of  human  life  and  its  experience 
will  bear  with  the  philosopher  now,  for 
Tennyson  is  a  more  heavily  laden  thinker 
here  than  was  the  author  of  "  In  Memo- 
riam."  He  knows  more  and  he  rejects 
more  of  what  he  thought  was  known. 
We  may  well  stand  silently  here  for  a 
moment  to  wait  on  him,  for,  even  now, 
he  has  found  his  bearings.  He  has  looked 
into  humanity  and  observed  much  of  God 
and  man  even  since  he  made  King  Ar- 
thur say  sadly : 

**  I  found  Him  in  the  shining  of  the  stars, 
I  mark'd  Him  in  the  flowering  of  His  fields, 
But  in  His  ways  with  men  I  find  Him  not. 
I  waged  His  wars,  and  now  I  pass  and  die. 
O  me  !  for  why  is  all  around  us  here 
As  if  some  lesser  god  had  made  the  world, 
But  had  not  force  to  shape  it  as  he  would, 
Till  the  High  God  behold  it  from  beyond, 
And  enter  it  and  make  it  beautiful  ? 


172  The  Higher  Ministries 

Or  else  as  if  the  world  were  wholly  fair, 
But  that  these  eyes  of  men  are  dense  and  dim, 
And  have  not  power  to  see  it  as  it  is : 
Perchance,  because  we  see  not  to  the  close  ;  — 
For  I,  being  simple,  thought  to  work  His  will. 
And  have  but  stricken  with  the  sword  in  vain  ; 
And  all  whereon  I  leaned  in  wife  and  friend 
Is  traitor  to  my  peace,  and  all  my  realm 
Reels  back  into  the  beast  and  is  no  more. 
My  God,  Thou  hast  forgotten  me  in  my  death  : 
Nay — God  my  Christ — I  pass  but  shall  not  die." 

Nothing  now  can  postpone  the  calamity 
of  soul  in  Guinevere.  Even  her  lover, 
Lancelot,  must  help  to  dig  her  hell  the 
deeper  into  herself.  Modred  is  on  his 
victorious  path  to  the  throne,  when  he 
peers  upon  the  Queen  and  Lancelot  who 
are  met  for  the  last  time. 

"  Passion-pale  they  met 
And  greeted.     Hands  in  hands,  and  eye  to  eye, 
Low  on  the  border  of  her  couch  they  sat 
Stammering  and  staring.     It  was  their  last  hour, 
A  madness  of  farewells.     And  Modred  brought 
His  creatures  to  the  basement  of  the  tower 
For  testimony ;  and  crying  with  full  voice 
'Traitor,  come  out,  ye  are  trapt  at  last,*  aroused 
Lancelot,  who  rushing  outward  lionlike 
Leapt  on  him,  and  hurl'd  him  headlong,  and  he 
fell 


Of  Recent  English  Poetry  173 

Stunn'd,  and  his  creatures  took  and  bare  him  off, 
And  all  was  still :  then  she,  '  The  end  is  come 
And  I  am  shamed  forever ;  '  and  he  said, 
*  Mine  be  the  shame ;  mine  was  the  sin  :  but  rise, 
And  fly  to  my  strong  castle  overseas : 
There  will  I  hide  thee,  till  my  life  shall  end, 
There  hold  thee  with  my  life  against  the  world.' 
She  answer'd,  '  Lancelot,  wilt  thou  hold  me  so  ? 
Nay,  friend,  for  we  have  taken  our  farewells. 
Would    God    that   thou   couldst   hide   me  from 
myself  1  '  " 

Yes ;  it  is  also  with  one's  self  one  has 
to  reckon ;  and  this  is  of  the  same  philos- 
ophy which  indited  the  description  of  the 
wanderer — **  when  he  came  to  himselfP 

She  flees  to  a  convent ;  but  she  cannot 
escape  herself.  Lancelot,  with  all  his  in- 
herent moral  value,  cannot  pay  the  debt 
incurred  to  her,  to  Arthur,  to  himself. 
Rich  in  ability,  he  is  morally  bankrupt. 
In  her  sequestration,  the  Queen's  sin  is 
made  more  manifest  to  her  by  the  little 
novice's  song  :  "  Too  late,  ye  cannot  enter 
now."  Lancelot,  "  love-loyal  to  the  least 
wish  of  the  Queen,"  may  say  :  "  I  needs 
must  break  these  bonds  that  so  defame 
me,"  only  to  add  instantly  :  "  Not  with- 
out she  wills  it."     Yes :   the  chain  that 


1^4  The  Higher  Ministries 

enslaves  me  the  most  is  the  one  I  love 
the  most.  It  is  not  of  rusted  iron,  but 
of  gold  and  it  is  jewelled.  Guinevere's 
words  to  Lancelot  were  indeed  agonies. 

But  a  more  fearful  judgment  awaits 
her — this  is  the  judgment-power  of  that 
greatest  fact  in  morals,  the  Incarnation  of 
God  in  man — she  must  meet  King  Arthur. 
Let  these  words  of  the  Te  Deum  be  al- 
ways sung :  "  We  believe  that  Thou  shalt 
be  our  Judge."  Sorrowful  as  are  her 
words  with  Lancelot,  this  is  the  terrible 
eminence  of  her  grief  when  the  King 
speaks  to  her : 

"He  paused,  and  in  the  pause  she  crept  an 
inch 
Nearer,  and  laid  her  hands  about  his  feet. 
Far  off  a  solitary  trumpet  blew. 
Then  waiting  by  the  doors  the  warhorse  neigh' d 
As  at  a  friend's  voice,  and  he  spake  again : 

" '  Yet   think   not   that  I  come  to  urge  thy 
crimes, 
I  did  not  come  to  curse  thee,  Guinevere, 
I,  whose  vast  pity  almost  makes  me  die 
To  see  thee,  laying  there  thy  golden  head, 
My  pride  in  happier  summers,  at  my  feet. 
The  wrath  which  forced  my  thoughts  on  that 
fierce  law, 


Of  Recent  English  Poetry  175 

The  doom  of  treason  and  tlie  flaming  death, 
(When  first  I  learnt  thee  hidden  here)  is  past. 
The  pang — which  while  I  weigh 'd  thy  heart 

with  one 
Too  wholly  true  to  dream  untruth  in  thee, 
Made  my  tears  burn — is  also  past — in  part. 
And  all  is  past,  the  sin  is  sinn'd,  and  I, 
Lo  !  I  forgive  thee,  as  Eternal  God 
Forgives :  do  thou  for  thine  own  soul  the  rest. 
But  how  to  take  last  leave  of  all  I  loved  ? 

0  golden  hair,  with  which  I  used  to  play 
Not  knowing  !     O  imperial-moulded  form. 
And  beauty  such  as  never  woman  wore, 
Until  it  came  a  kingdom's  curse  with  thee  — 

1  cannot  touch  thy  lips,  they  are  not  mine, 
But  Lancelot's:  nay,  they  never  were  the  King's.' 
I  cannot  take  thy  hand,  that  too  is  flesh, 

And  in  the  flesh  thou  hast  sinned ;  and  mine 

own  flesh 
Here  looking  down  on  thine  polluted,  cries 
'  I  loath  thee ' :  yet  not  less,  O  Guinevere, 
For  I  was  ever  virgin  save  for  thee, 
My  love  thro'  flesh  hath  wrought  into  my  life 
So  far,  that  my  doom  is,  I  love  thee  still. 
Let  no  man  dream  but  that  I  love  thee  still. 
Perchance,  and  so  thou  purify  thy  soul. 
And  so  thou  lean  on  our  fair  father  Christ, 
Hereafter  in  that  world  where  all  are  pure 
We  two  may  meet  before  high  God,  and  thou 
Wilt  spring  to  me,  and  claim  me  thine,  and  know 
I  am  thine  husband — not  a  smaller  soul. 


176  The  Higher  Ministries 

Nor  Lancelot,  nor  another.     Leave  me  that, 
I  charge  thee,  my  last  hope.     Now  must  I  hence. 
Thro'  the  thick  night  I  hear  the  trumpet  blow : 
They  summon  me  their  King  to  lead  mine  hosts 
Far  down  to  that  great  battle  in  the  west, 
Where  I  must  strike  against  my  sister's  son, 
Leagued  with  the  lords  of  the  White  Horse  and 

knights 
Once  mine,  and  strike  him  dead,  and  meet  myself 
Death,  or  I  know  not  what  mysterious  doom. 
And  thou  remaining  here  wilt  learn  the  event ; 
But  hither  shall  I  never  come  again. 
Never  lie  by  thy  side,  see  thee  no  more. 
Farewell ! 

And  while  she  grovell'd  at  his  feet, 
She  felt  the  King's  breath  wander  o'er  her  neck. 
And,  in  the  darkness  o'er  her  fallen  head, 
Perceived  the  waving  of  his  hands  that  blest." 

Guinevere  cannot  answer  now.  She 
can  only  stammer  forth  later :  "His 
mercy  choked  me." 

"  The  wrath  of  the  Lamb  !  " 

Awful  and  pathetic  as  is  burden  of  the 
phrase  of  the  Revelator,  yet  we  may  well 
say  that  something  of  the  "  wrath  of  the 
Lamb  "  is  in  these  words  and  in  this  end. 
Does  any  traditional  conception  of  hell  go 
so  deep,  burn  so  fiercely,  or  appear  so 
certain  as  this  ?  If  not,  it  is  for  the  same 
reason  that  none  of  the  traditional  con- 


Of  Recent  English  Poetry  177 

ceptions  of  heaven  is  so  high  or  so  glori- 
ous as  this  which  possesses  the  soul  of 
King  Arthur  when  he  says  farewell  to 
Guinevere,  leaving  her  half-hidden  in  the 
splendour  of  Christian  hope.  What  we 
need  to  ponder  are  these  things — the  art 
of  the  poet  still  kindles  its  torch  where 
the  Bible  and  Dante  and  Shakespeare 
found  "  Sinai  all  aflame  "  ;  and  Tenny- 
son's Higher  Pantheism  and  Larger 
Hope  are  worth  studying,  again  and 
again,  in  the  light  of  the  Idylls,  that  we 
may  ascertain  if  the  truth  which  lies 
in  what  is  called  the  Higher  Pantheism 
may  not  reinforce  and  honour  conscience, 
giving  conscience  a  rightful  place  on  the 
judgment-seat  such  as  neither  any  past 
dogmatic  theology  nor  any  fatalistic 
philosophy  has  thought  of,  and,  most  of 
all,  if  we  must  not  welcome  an  ethical 
vision  of  God  which  radiates  with  what 
Tennyson  names  the  Larger  Hope.  This 
vision  will  create  an  awe  within  the  soul 
and  inspire  such  a  revolt  of  character 
against  evil  as  must  ever  reflect  not  only 
the  throne  of  God,  but  the  great  throne 
of  God ;  and  not  only  the  great  throne, 
but  The  Great  White  Throne, 


LECTURE  IV 

ROBERT  BROWNING 

In  our  study  of  the  poets  whose  verses 
have  most  adequately  expressed  the  spir- 
itual problem  of  our  time,  or  most  effec- 
tively uttered  its  solution,  we  have  thus 
far  had  to  do  with  singers,  the  acknowl- 
edged triumph  of  whose  art  has  conspired, 
with  strength  of  imagination  or  truth  of 
thought,  to  make  their  poetry  attractive. 
Both  Arnold  and  Tennyson  are  artistic  ; 
— the  one  by  the  growth  of  a  talent 
severely  trained  by  classical  models,  the 
other  by  the  influence  of  a  genius  which 
has  left  its  impress  upon  the  very  language 
in  which  it  has  worked.  Robert  Brown- 
ing's most  devoted  eulogist,  however,  will 
hardly  assert  that  he  is  as  musical  in  ex- 
pression, as  he  is  great  and  true  in  con- 
ception. He  must  not  be  praised  for  his 
finish  or  for  his  beauty — and  these  are 
marks  of  the  artist.  Always  will  it  be 
suspected  that  these  lofty  ideas  and  rich 
sentiments  might  have  had  a  more  worthy 
178 


Of  Recent  English  Poetry  179 

form.  Power  in  its  lawlessness  will  for- 
ever seem  to  have  lorded  it  over  harmony 
— and  thus  to  have  been  less  powerful 
than  it  ought  to  have  been ;  since  real 
power  never  wholly  expresses  itself  save 
in  harmony  with  grace.  "  Strength  and . 
beauty  are  in  his  sanctuary."  More  like 
Angelo  than  like  Raphael,  Browning 
lived  in  an  age  of  over-refinement,  with 
an  undismayed  trust  in  pure  power.  He 
had  seen  Lord  Tennyson  multiply  his 
miniatures  and  enjoy  the  longest  day  of 
fame  which  any  English  singer  has  known, 
as  he  gave  one  after  another  of  his  ex- 
quisite pictures  to  an  admiring  public, 
Browning  all  the  while  showing  that,  if 
he  desired  to  do  so,  he  could  do  some 
beautiful  things  as  well,  but  instantly  re- 
treating from  the  dew-drop  to  the  thun- 
der-cloud where  is  the  hiding  of  power. 

Browning  was  like  his  own  Paracelsus, 
who  says : 

"  God's  intimations  rather  fail 
In  clearness  than  in  energy," 

as  Tennyson  was  more  like  his  own  King 
Arthur,  simply 

"  Wearing  the  white  flower  of  a  blameless  life." 


i8o  The  Higher  Ministries 

Tennyson,  as  an  artist,  with  his  faultless 
harmony,  his  delicate  purity,  his  fine 
colour,  and  his  serene  certainty  of  stroke, 
teaches  the  holiness  of  beauty  ;  Browning, 
if  he  may  be  called  an  artist,  with  his 
rugged  force,  his  intense  passion  for 
movement,  his  nervous  splendour,  his 
abrupt  change  from  an  old  to  a  new  pur- 
pose, teaches  the  holiness  of  power.  As 
a  religious  teacher,  Tennyson  helps  us  to 
learn  from  his  weary  sinners  and  his 
lovely  saints,  the  beauty  of  holiness ; 
Browning,  from  his  wretched  ruins  and 
his  sublime  devotees,  the  power  of  holi- 
ness. 

I  do  not  offer  this  brief  comparison  as 
a  complete  account  of  these  poets  or  their 
ministry,  but  I  am  persuaded  that  as 
Tennyson  has  been  the  best  leader  for  our 
faith  in  a  somewhat  consciously  refined 
age,  Mr.  Browning  will  prove  to  be  the 
best  teacher  for  us,  now  that  the  over-re- 
finement of  our  time  begins  to  yield  to 
the  presence  of  strength.  How  strong  is 
the  genius  of  Browning  may  be  seen  in 
the  perfectly  distinct  way  which  he 
made  for  himself,  after  having  confessed 
the  power  which  Shelley  had  over  him, 


Of  Recent  English  Poetry  l8l 

when,  at  thirteen  years  of  age,  he  began 
to  read  his  writings  and  to  search  for 
others.  It  has  other  testimony  in  the 
freedom  and  force  with  which  he  mas- 
ters the  vast  accumulations  of  learning 
which  he  made  in  his  life  under  the  skies 
where  Leonardo  painted  and  Virgil  and 
Dante  had  sung.  Indeed,  Mr.  Brown- 
ing's very  trying  style  is  the  unpleasant, 
but  resistless  evidence  of  his  power.  Per- 
haps every  man's  weakness  is  but  the  ex- 
aggeration, or  lawless  exercise  of  some 
untrained  strength.  This  fullness  which 
bursts  through  rhyme,  and  this  strength 
which  crushes  accepted  theories  of  metre  ; 
this  suddenness  of  energy  which  snaps 
the  cords  which  rhetoricians  admire,  and 
this  richness  which  overloads  the  chariots 
of  verse  and  makes  the  bridges  in  their 
track  to  creak  with  the  burden  they  bear, 
have  come  from  a  great  fertile  soul  whose 
attribute  is  certainly  not  weakness.  Here 
is  a  man  who  has  subtlety  of  mind  suf- 
ficient to  understand  Hegel  and  Fichte 
and  Schelling  with  power  enough  to  teach 
the  idealism  of  Germany  as  its  waves 
reach  again  and  again  unto  our  shores,  a 
still   deeper   idealism.     Here   is   a  poet, 


i82  The  Higher  Ministries 

often  more  refined  than  the  refiners  who 
would  modify  his  harsh  verse,  who  yet 
trusts  his  powers  so  faithfully  that  he 
sings  carelessly  : 

"  What  the  poet  writes, 
He  writes ;  mankind  accepts  it  if  it  suits, 
And  that's  success  ;  if  not,  the  poem's  passed 
From  hand  to  hand,  and  yet  from  hand  to  hand, 
Until  the  unborn  snatch  it,  crying  out 
In  pity  on  their  fathers  being  so  dull, 
And  thai' s  success,  foo." 

He  has  been  conscious  that  he  was 
often  too  strong  for  an  age  which  had 
read  its  Tupper  and  sent  "  Yesterday,  To- 
day and  Forever"  through  so  many 
editions.     He  says : 

"  The  public  blame  originalities. 
You  must  not  pump  spring  water  unawares, 
Upon  a  gracious  public,  full  of  nerves." 

Concerning  these  manifestations  of  this 
power  which  do  not  spring  from  Brown- 
ing's efifort  to  express  the  greatest  truths, 
I  have  not  time  to  speak  at  length,  so 
valuable  and  so  comprehensive  is  his 
dealing   with   the  ideas,  sentiments  and 


Of  Recent  English  Poetry  183 

hopes  of  the  larger  spiritual  life.  And  it 
may  be  said  without  question,  that  so 
long  as  men  believe  the  dictum  which 
hung  upon  the  wall  of  Sir  William 
Hamilton's  lecture-room  :  "  There  is  noth- 
ing great  on  earth  but  man,  there  is  noth- 
ing great  in  man  but  mittd^'  there  will  be 
a  noble  interest  in  these  pages  of  Brown- 
ing, in  which  is  told  with  a  power  un- 
matched since  Shakespeare,  the  story  of 
the  human  mind,  with  its  great  harmonies 
and  stormy  discords  ;  its  abysmal  doubts 
and  heaven-revealing  faith  ;  its  brute-like 
passion,  wallowing  in  the  fires  of  hell ; 
its  godlike  aspirations,  mounting  midst 
the  lights  of  heaven ;  its  wild,  grand 
agonies  of  pain  ;  its  pure,  sweet  tran- 
sports of  joy. 

Walter  Savage  Landor  probably  was 
never  more  careful  of  the  value  of  his 
praise  than  when  he  sang : 

"  Shakespeare  is  not  our  poet,  but  the  world's ; 
Therefore  on  him  no  speech  !  and  brief  for  thee, 
Browning  !     Since  Chaucer  was  alive  and  hale. 
No  man  hath  walked  along  our  roads  with  step 
So  active,  so  inquiring  eye,  or  tongue 
So  varied  in  discourse.     But  warmer  climes 
Give  brighter  plumage,  stronger  wing ;  the  breeze 


184  The  Higher  Ministries 

Of  Alpine  heights  thou  playest  with,  borne  on 

Beyond  Sorrento  and  Amalfi,  where 

The  Siren  waits  thee,  singing  song  for  song." 

And  it  was  not  love  at  all,  but  her 
critical  instinct  simply,  which  led  Eliza- 
beth Barrett  to  expect 

**  From  Browning,  some  *  Pomegranate '  which, 

if  cut  deep  down  the  middle, 
Shows  a  heart  within,  blood-tinctured,  of  a  veined 

humanity." 

*  Humanity  " — that  always  it  is — a 
*'  blood-tinctured,  veined  humanity  " — 
that  alone  it  is,  by  which  one  man  may 
understand  and  reveal  men  to  themselves 
and  to  others  ;  that  it  is  by  which  even 
the  Eternal  God  has  revealed  Himself  in 
us  and  in  the  Incarnation,  Jesus  Christ, 
— "  a  blood-tinctured,  veined  humanity." 
Robert  Browning  has  appeared  in  a  time 
when  a  scientific  psychology  has  felt  about 
fearlessly  in  human  nature  for  its  founda- 
tions ;  and  while  scalpel  and  anatomist 
have  been  going  together  along  through 
the  mysteries  of  mind  and  brain,  this 
many-sided  man  has  put  his  very  soul  so 
close    to    throbbing    human    nature,   in 


Of  Recent  English  Poetry  185 

various  moods  and  at  sundry  times,  that 
his  poetry  is  laden  and  inspired  with  the 
deepest  history  of  the  human  spirit.  He 
has  revealed  humanity,  through  its  having 
told  its  secrets  to  his  humanity.  He  has 
written  out,  in  those  moments  when  it  most 
lifted  him  towards  the  throne  of  the  uni- 
verse, these  results  which  no  unpoetic 
soul  may  ever  group  together  in  its  lists 
of  mental  phenomena ;  he  has  made  the 
portraits,  for  all  generations,  of  those  men 
and  women  whose  features  have  told  to 
him  alone  the  circumstances  of  their 
spiritual  life,  the  forces  which  have  acted 
in  their  mental  growth,  the  influences 
which  flash  out  in  lightning  strokes  of 
passion  or  compel  a  prophetic  peace. 

Now,  it  is  certain  that  to  such  a  living 
man  as  this,  facts  of  human  character  and 
life  will  come  which  give  him  a  larger 
view,  a  surer  vision,  and  a  profounder 
philosophy  of  human  action  and  destiny, 
than  other  men  may  obtain.  Shakespeare 
furnishes  to  theology  ateaching  in  Hamlet, 
Othello,  Macbeth,  which  every  advancing 
step  of  human  vision  appreciates  more 
highly,  because,  all  unintentionally  per- 
haps,  he  came  so  near  to  humanity  that 


i86  The  Higher  Ministries 

conscience,  reason,  hope,  love,  whispered 
truths  through  his  dramas,  unuttered  to 
other  men. 

It  is  the  high  privilege  also  of  Brown- 
ing to  listen  to  the  humanity  of  well-nigh 
all  ages  ;  and  living  in  a  somewhat  ques- 
tioning, often  hopeless  time,  to  bring  back 
the  gospel  of  hope.  Like  Shakespeare, 
the  very  ruins  he  finds  in  wrecked 
humanity  need  but  such  a  fine  eye  and 
the  heart  of  a  "  blood-tinctured,  veined 
humanity  "  such  as  theirs,  to  disclose  hope 
hiding  there.  Here  is  the  phenomenon 
of  our  profoundest  modern  student  of 
what  we  call  "  poor  human  nature,"  all 
undiscouraged,  singing  without  a  note  of 
pessimism 

"Where  brooding  darkness  spreads  his  jealous 

wings 
And  the  night-raven  sings." 

Do  you  say  Mr.  Browning  has  not 
gone  to  the  lowly  and  brutal  for  any  ac- 
count of  man,  that  his  optimism  comes 
because  he  has  not  sought  to  understand 
the  bestial  currents  of  life  which  war  with 
the  spiritual  ?  The  answer  is  a  poem  like 
"  Caliban    Upon    Setebos,     or     Natural 


Of  Recent  English  Poetry  187 

Theology  on  an  Island."  With  his  un- 
canny ability  to  throw  himself  into  the 
existence  of  another  being  and  to  live  its 
most  involved  and  characteristic  life,  he 
lives  with  and  by  this  brute's  soul  ;  the 
"moon-calf"  supplies  him  with  blood  in 
which  act  and  react  the  beast's  very 
nature,  with  which  "  pigs  might  squeak 
love-odes,  dogs  bark  satire."  In  it  all, 
the  sottish  animalism  reaches  up  for  a 
theology  and  crouches  in  terror  midst 
the  thunder-storm.  Shakespeare's  Cali- 
ban in  "  The  Tempest "  was  made  a 
figure  for  the  analytic  nineteenth  cen- 
tury, when  the  question  of  anthropo- 
morphism and  of  our  relations  to  the 
animals  below  us  became  living  ones  ;  yet, 
no  one  who  may  ever  adopt  Dr.  Wilson's 
view  which  makes  the  Caliban  in  Shake- 
speare the  missing  link  of  Darwin,  will 
fail  to  see  in  Browning's  **  Caliban  upon 
Setebos "  perhaps  the  finest  evidence  of 
how  deeply  Browning  has  gone  into 
animal  psychology  and  how  surely  his 
genius  has  comprehended  the  dark  prob- 
lems which  hover  over  the  nature  of  man. 
Man  and  human  hope  are  what  they  are 
to  Browning,  because  he  has  gone  more 


l88  The  Higher  Ministries 

deeply  than  even  Tennyson  into  modern 
science ;  because  he  has  an  eye  for  psy- 
chological phenomena  and  an  under- 
standing of  the  real  value  of  the  doctrine 
of  natural  selection  and  evolution  surer 
than  is  even  his  who  sees  men  as  they 

"  Move  upward,  working  out  the  beast, 
And  let  the  ape  and  tiger  die." 

By  this  spiritual  and  pathological  equip- 
ment, Browning  is  sure  to  have  the  ear  of 
the  next  generation,  whose  fathers  have 
been  told  not  only  that  the  soul  is  not  im- 
mortal, but  also  that  **  man  is  not  only  a 
vertebrate,  a  mammal,  and  a  primate, 
but  he  belongs,  as  a  genus,  to  the  Cata- 
rhine  family  of  apes."  Of  the  higher  life 
of  man,  there  is  no  greater  singer.  Like 
his  monk,  he  might  say,  since  love  is  so 
supreme  in  woman : 

"  For  me,  I  think  I  speak  as  I  was  taught  — 
I  always  see  the  Garden,  and  God  there  — 
A-making  man's  wife — and,  my  lesson  learned, 
The  value  and  significance  of  flesh, 
I  can't  unlearn  ten  minutes  afterwards." 

For  to  him,  nature  has  its  goal  in  man. 


Of  Recent  English  Poetry  189 

The  great  truth  underlying  the  doctrine 
of  evolution  shines  with  all  its  optimistic 
light  everywhere  in  his  verses. 

The  power  in  the  spiritual  realm  upon 
which  the  hopes  of  this  poet  stand  and 
the  music  which  inspires  his  own  is 
Christianity.  It  furnishes  a  perpetually 
true,  because  growing  revelation  to  the 
reason  of  God  and  humanity  ;  it  supplies 
the  human  heart  with  an  affection  which 
strengthens  and  refines  it,  and  whatever 
other  value  real  Christianity  has,  its  chief 
value  lies  in  the  gift  it  has  made  of 
motive-power  for  a  motiveless  world.  It 
came  when  the  hands  of  man  were  hang- 
ing down,  and  the  knees  were  feeble ;  it 
somehow  stirred  the  latent  forces  of 
human  nature  as  nothing  else  has  ever 
done  ;  it  put  a  new  sky  over  the  intellect ; 
it  recreated  the  human  heart  by  a  new 
and  attractive  love  ;  but  it  also  sent  along 
the  nerves  of  the  purposeless  humanity 
which  it  touched,  a  thrill  divine ;  and  the 
will  of  man,  clinging  to  the  will  of  God, 
began  again  its  all-conquering  career. 
To  Robert  Browning  that  great  power 
which  came  to  the  world  in  Christ  Jesus 
is  as  yet  unspent.     It  is  a  revelation  of 


IQO  The  Higher  Ministries 

God  and  man  in  Christ — the  revelation 
of  the  fact  that  they  belong  to  each  other 
by  nature — and  for  him,  this  revelation, 
coming  upon  the  human  soul,  upon  the 
intellect,  sensibilities,  and  will,  makes  the 
new  humanity. 

Of  course,  it  is  not  scholastic  or  an  ec- 
clesiastical Christianity  which  has  made 
Browning  both  poet  and  priest.  No 
man,  however,  has  more  truly  appre- 
hended the  forms  into  which  men  have 
put  the  Gospel  of  Christ,  from  Pope  In- 
nocent XII  in  "  The  Ring  and  the  Book," 
to  Renan  in  the  "  Epilogue,"  he  has  gone 
over  the  extreme  positions  of  medieval 
credulity  and  modern  rationalism. 
Bishop  Blougram  and  a  sceptical  Got- 
tingen  Professor ;  the  Bishop  of  St. 
Praxed  and  Karshish,  the  Arab  Physi- 
cian ;  Fra  Lippo  Lippi,  and  Saul ;  Rabbi 
Ben  Ezra  and  Mr,  Sludge,  the  Medium ; 
— these  are  only  some  of  the  characters 
of  his  poems  on  whose  features  play  with 
various  language,  the  lights  of  Chris- 
tianity. With  such  a  number  of  persons, 
each  speaking  a  characteristic  word,  it  is 
easy  to  study  their  author's  interpreta- 
tion and  proclamation  of  Christianity,  as 


Of  Recent  English  Poetry  191 

through  them  it  operates  as  a  controlling 
force  upon  the  intellect,  the  sensibilities 
and  the  will. 

Browning's  message  to  the  intellect 
is  his  message  to  the  whole  man.  I  look 
upon  him,  in  the  midst  of  the  hghts  and 
shadows  of  our  rationalism,  as  the 
prophet  of  the  age  of  reason, — not  Vol- 
taire's age  of  reason,  but  the  Christ's. 
Our  so-called  rationalism  has  largely  been 
the  triumph  of  unreason.  We  have  wor- 
shipped logic  and  have  made  feast-day 
over  the  results  of  our  reasoning.  Every- 
thing which  the  feelings  have  sought  to 
reveal  has  been  called  effeminate,  and 
the  action  of  the  emotional  nature,  to 
which  in  every  age  the  largest  truths 
have  disclosed  themselves,  has  been  de- 
clared sentimental.  Our  theology  has 
long  been  developing  a  rationalism  inside 
the  lines  of  orthodoxy  which  finally  began 
to  lord  it  over  God's  entire  spiritual  heri- 
tage. The  mystic  has  been  rejected  on 
all  sides ;  the  lover  and  the  bard  have 
been  cast  out,  together  with  the  material- 
ist and  sceptic.  But  now  that  truths 
which  an  unintelligent  theology  has  neg- 
lected, come  up  like  unquiet  ghosts  for 


192  The  Higher  Ministries 

their  rightful  place,  and  now  that  the 
calculating  hardness  of  our  practical 
materialism  seems  to  resist  everything 
but  a  deep  spiritual  experience  which 
runs  beyond  our  intellectual  accounts  of 
it,  the  hour  strikes  for  the  singer,  whose 
poetry  is  often  vague  and  mysterious 
with  visions  of  the  infinite  God  whose 
greatness  and  nearness  only  the  mystics 
have  known, — a  poet  whose  passion  is 
equal  to  his  thought,  whose  love  is  as 
strong  as  his  logic,  whose  martial  strains 
sound  to  the  sleeping  human  will  as  never 
yet  English  music  has  sounded. 

Browning  saves  the  intellect,  grants  it 
its  full  scope,  and  achieves  for  it  its  surest 
successes,  by  relieving  it  from  dominat- 
ing the  heart  and  will  in  the  search  for 
truth  ;  he  leads  it  to  work  together  with 
them — one  soul, — intellect,  sensibilities 
and  will — seeking  truth.  The  head  seek- 
ing truth  or  greatness  of  life,  without  the 
heart,  is  sure  to  fail.  In  the  words  of 
Paracelsus  we  have  the  lofty  look  of  the 
aspiring  searcher  for  knowledge  : 

"  Are  there  not,  Festus,  are  there  not,  dear  Michal, 
Two  points  in  the  adventure  of  the  diver, 


Of  Recent  English  Poetry  193 

One — when,  a  beggar,  he  prepares  to  plunge, 
One — when,  a  prince,  he  rises  with  his  pearl  ? 
Festus,  I  plunge  ! 
(Festus)  *  We  wait  you  when  you  rise.'  " 

And  what  a  splendid  plunge  it  is !  Let 
us  remember  that  this  poem  was  written 
years  before  the  hypothesis  of  the  evolu- 
tion of  the  higher  from  the  lower  had 
its  statement  in  scientific  phrase.  Yet 
Browning  in  this  matter  is  not  far  in 
advance  of  Tennyson  who  sings  it  all  in 
"  In  Memoriam."  But  there  is  here  a 
virile  apprehension  of  the  scope  and  per- 
vasiveness of  these  ideas  entirely  accord- 
ant with  the  stronger  intellect  of  Brown- 
ing.   He  it  is  who  makes  Paracelsus  say ; 

"  God  .  .  .  dwells  in  all, 
From  life's  minute  beginnings  up  at  last 
To  man — the  consummation  of  this  scheme 
Of  being,  the  completion  of  this  sphere 
Of  life." 

Here  we  learn  that 

"  God  tastes  an  infinite  joy,  in  infinite  ways," 
and  that 

"  In  completed  man  begins  anew 
A  tendency  to  God." 


1^4  The  Higher  Ministries 

Paracelsus  reaches  the  full  conception  of 
the  *'  Inner  Light."     "  Truth,"  he  says 

"  Is  within  ourselves  ;  it  takes  no  rise 
From  outward  things.   .   .   . 
There  is  an  inmost  centre  in  us  all, 
Where  truth  abides  in  fullness," 

God  always  had  yearned  for 

"  Some  point  where  all  those  scattered  rays  should 

meet 
Convergent  in  the  faculties  of  man." 

And  Paracelsus  has  faith  in  Him  with 

"Just  so  much  of  doubt 
As  bade  me  plant  a  surer  foot  upon 
The  sun-road." 

He  sees  that  it  is  our  glory  to 

"  Add  worth  to  worth, 
As  wine  enriches  blood,  and  straightway  send  it 

forth, 
Conquering  and  to  conquer,  through  all  eternity, 
That's  battle  without  end." 

Even  his  account  of  nature  must  include 
sentiment,  and  the  pervasive  emotion  of 
God  almost  challenges  our  love. 

"  The  centre-fire  heaves  underneath  the  earth, 
And  the  earth  changes  like  a  human  face ; 


Of  Recent  English  Poetry  195 

The  molten  ore  bursts  up  among  the  rocks, 
Winds  into  the  stone's  heart,  outbranches  bright 
In  hidden  mines,  spots  barren  river-beds. 
Crumbles  into  fine  sand  where  sunbeams  bask  — 
God  joys  therein  !     The  wroth  sea's  waves  are 

edged 
With  foam,  white  as  the  bitten  lip  of  Hate, 
When  in  the  solitary  waste,  strange  groups 
Of  young  volcanoes  come  up,  cyclops-like, 
Staring  together  with  their  eyes  on  flame; — 
God  tastes  a  pleasure  in  their  uncouth  pride ! 
Then  all  is  still :  earth  is  a  wintry  clod  ; 
But  spring-wind,  like  a  dancing  psaltress,  passes 
Over  its  breast  to  waken  it ;  rare  verdure 
Buds  tenderly  upon  rough  banks,  between 
The  withered  tree-roots  and  the  cracks  of  frost, 
Like  a  smile  striving  with  a  wrinkled  face ; 
The  grass  grows  bright,  the  boughs  are  swol'n 

with  blooms 
Like  chrysalids  impatient  of  the  air; 
The  shining  dorrs  are  busy ;  beetles  run 
Along  the  furrows,  ants  make  their  ado ; 
Above,  birds  fly  in  merry  flocks — the  lark 
Soars  up  and  up,  shivering  for  very  joy ; 
Afar  the  ocean  sleeps ;  white  fishing-gulls 
Flit  where  the  strand  is  purple  with  its  tribe 
Of  nested  limpets ;  savage  creatures  seek 
Their  loves  in  wood  and  plain  ;  and  God  renews 
His  ancient  rapture  !  " 

Paracelsus  has  the  fatal  success  he  de- 


196  The  Higher  Ministries 

sired — it  is  a  triumph  of  pure  intellect. 
But  it  is  a  failure  for  him,  a  personal  loss  ; 
and  it  is  a  failure  for  truth ;  he  does  not 
get  the  richest  pearl.  What  a  confession 
of  the  failure  of  mere  intellectualism  is 
this  1  Knowledge  without  love,  he  feels, 
is  sure  to  end  in  fog  and  blinding  mist. 
He  meets  one  who  has  sought  love  as  he 
has  sought  nothing  but  knowledge.  Both 
have  sinned.  Fragmentariness  has  failed 
to  gain  what  comes  to  wholeness  only : 

"Love  me  henceforth,  Aprile,  while  I  learn 
To  love  ;  and,  merciful  God,  forgive  us  both  ! 
We  wake  at  length  from  weary  dreams  !  but  both 
Have  slept  in  fairy-land.     Though  dark  and  drear 
Appears  the  world  before  us,  we  no  less 
Wake  with  our  wrists  and  ankles  jewelled  still. 
I,  too,  have  sought  to  know  as  thou  to  love  — 
Excluding  love,  as  thou  refuseth  knowledge  — 
Still  thou  hast  beauty  and  power.     We  wake  ! 
What  penance  can  devise  for  both  of  us  ?  " 

But  why  this  ill-success  of  aspiring  in- 
tellect ? 

Aprile  has  said : 

**  I  would  supply  all  chasms  with  music,  breathing 
Mysterious  motions  of  the  soul,  no  way 
To  be  defined  save  in  strange  melodies." 


Of  Recent  English  Poetry  197 

Aprile  tells  him  this  ;  and  in  the  telling, 
it  is  clear  that  Browning  knows  the  value 
of  knowledge  and  estimates  the  power 
and  privileges  of  the  intellect,  yet  in  all 
the  various  music  of  the  great  poem,  the 
doom  of  a  fragmentary  life — a  life  merely 
of  intellect — goes  sounding  sullenly  on. 
Love  must  have  Love's  duties  and  privi- 
leges. 

"  Love  which  endures  and  doubts  and  is  oppressed 
And    cherished,  suffering  much  and  much  sus- 
tained, 
And  blind,  oft  failing,  yet  believing  love, 
A  half-enlightened,  often -chequered  trust." 

Christianity  is  much  else,  I  know,  but, 
to  the  intellect,  Christianity  is  the  re- 
asserting and  reestablishing  of  faith  as 
the  organ  of  knowledge  and  as  the 
method  of  life.  What  was  the  fall  of 
man,  but  the  unreasoning  triumph  of 
reason  in  the  soul  of  man  ?  The  serpent 
which  tempted  to  sin  was  rationalism, 
charming  but  stinging.  Man  persisted 
in  eating  of  the  tree  of  the  knowledge  of 
good  and  evil.  He  would  not  wait  in 
trust  upon  God's  knowledge.  He  must 
know  for  himself.     The  heart  was  all  love- 


198  The  Higher  Ministries 

less  and  the  will  was  powerless  ;  but  the 
reason  had  won  a  triumph  ;  the  intellect 
had  its  false  supremacy.  So,  all  through 
the  centuries  of  Paganism,  the  trustless 
soul  had  been  dominated  by  the  intellect. 
Many  a  Cleon  had  his  aching  heart  and 
his  weak  guess.  He  has  not  waited  for 
a  Browning  to  make  his  portrait.  Every 
ancient  literature  has  left  the  story  of  his 
efforts  and  failure  in  seeking  the  highest 
truth.  When  Christianity  came,  it  oper- 
ated, perhaps  only  incidentally,  but  ef- 
fectively, in  the  soul  of  man  to  the  re- 
establishment  of  faith.  If  we  may  distin- 
guish activities  as  faculties  or  powers,  the 
reason  which  had  lorded  it  over  the 
human  spirit,  then  took  its  place  along 
with  sentiment  and  purpose ;  intellect, 
sensibility,  and  will  were  all  together 
drawn  into  healthful  activity  in  the  act  of 
faith.  An  object  of  attention  came  before 
the  whole  nature  of  man,  and  that  object 
was  Jesus  who  was  called  the  Christ. 
This  was  the  revolution  which  the  new 
religion  worked  in  the  soul.  It  did  not 
destroy  reason,  but  it  put  reason  in  the 
proper  place  ;  it  thus  made  reason  more 
reasonable.     This  accounts   for   the  fact 


Of  Recent  English  Poetry  199 

that  while  Christianity  opposed,  at  all 
costs,  the  ambitious  intellect  which  ruled 
the  world's  spirit,  it  did  so,  by  making 
faith  the  organ  of  knowledge  ;  it  brought 
about  a  new  and  greater  era  for  the  in- 
tellect ;  it  made  life  and  thought  more 
truly  rational  than  they  had  been  before. 
Christianity  insists  upon  faith.  Faith  is 
the  one  act  where  all  there  is  of  a  man, — 
thought,  feeling,  will, — is  active  :  "  Weave 
saved  by  faithP  Christianity  inspires  this 
act  of  faith  by  placing  before  the  soul  a  fact 
equally  impressive  to  intellect,  sensibili- 
ties and  will — the  Christ  of  God — a  fact 
whose  glory  comes  through  faith  alone. 
It  is  faith  which  has  in  it  the  intellect's 
truth,  the  heart's  love  and  the  will's  pur- 
pose. 

This  human  totality  or  integrity  of 
Browning's  soul  is  evident  in  his  attitude 
towards  and  his  treatment  of  nature.  The 
accumulations  of  Tennyson's  alert  and 
encompassing  intelligence  which  made 
Thackeray  say  he  was  the  wisest  man  he 
knew  and  which  strikes  the  student  of 
natural  phenomena  as  astonishing  even 
in  the  age  of  Lubbock,  Grant  Allen,  and 
Helmholtz,  are  surpassed  in  quantity  and 


200  The  Hiirher  Ministries 


fc>' 


interest  by  those  which  appear  in  the 
larger  and  more  sensitive,  if  less  highly 
instructed  mind  of  Browning.  The  value 
of  any  man's  information  lies  most  in  his 
philosophy  of  the  universe,  which  coor- 
dinates it,  sheds  light  upon  it  and  binds 
it  to  the  higher  interests  of  the  soul. 
Here  Browning  is  a  superior  master,  by 
having  always  a  more  vitalizing  vision  of 
man's  destiny  under  God — a  vision  which 
never  could  have  permitted  in  him  the 
obscurations  of  Tennyson's  "  Locksley 
Hall  Sixty  Years  After."  But  above 
these  is  the  personal  unit — Browning 
himself,  with  his  intenser  faith, — the  ut- 
terance of  his  closely  related  and  evenly 
blended  powers.  If  he  paints  a  landscape, 
it  is  as  truly  an  appeal  to  the  heart  as  it 
is  to  the  head.  Here,  for  example,  are 
the  grasp  and  moulding  power  of  Rous- 
seau. We  are  with  the  latter  in  Fon- 
tainbleau. 

"  Oh,  good  gigantic  smile  o'  the  brown  old  earth. 
This  autumn  morning  !    How  he  sets  his  bones 

To  bask  i'  the  sun,  and  thrusts  out  knees  and  feet 

For  the  ripple  to  run  over  in  its  mirth ; 

Listening  the  while,  where  on  the  heap  of  stones 

The  white  breast  of  the  sea-lark  twitters  sweet." 


Of  Recent  English  Poetry  2oi 

The  touch  of  beauty  which  glorifies  all 
this  strength  reminds  us  of  his  brother 
artist,  Daubigny,  who  could  suggest  an 
ocean  in  that  white  breast.  Here  again 
are  the  blitheness  and  ecstasy  of  Corot's 
dreamiest  morning,  suddenly  localized  in 
spring's  quivering  branch  and  thrilled 
bud: 

"  This  is  a  spray  the  Bird  clung  to, 
Making  it  blossom  with  pleasure, 
Ere  the  high  tree-top  she  sprung  to. 
Fit  for  her  nest  and  her  treasure. 
Oh,  what  a  hope  beyond  measure 
Was  the  poor  spray's,  which  the  flying  feet  hung 

to,— 
So  to  be  singled  out,  built  in,  and  sung  to  !  " 

In  all  this — in  the  fact  that  the  bird 
translates  the  life  and  passion  of  the  na- 
ture below  her  rank  and  gives  it  all  the 
shiver  of  a  progressive  destiny,  things 
are  tending  man-ward.  There  is  the 
ever-dramatic  human  interest,  however 
lyrically  it  may  be  stated.  Browning's 
stairway  of  existence  begins  with  crude 
stuff  in  ooze  and  slime,  but  it  rises 
steadily  with  ever-developing  splendour 
until  it  leans  against  the  throne  of  God. 


202  The  Higher  Ministries 

Man  can  no  more  commune  with  nature 
if  she  be  not  man-infused  and  man-mak- 
ing, as  she  slowly  realizes  her  own  dream, 
than  man  can  commune  with  God  if  God 
be  not  in  man  as  a  father  has  his  being 
in  the  child.  Nature's  language  is  com- 
prehensible and  interesting  to  man  only 
because  man's  symphony  is  in  the  wind 
and  his  own  lay  is  in  the  chaffinch's  song. 
This  is  very  human,  but  it  is  as  far  from 
our  current  human  talk  by  our  book- 
made  birds  as  dynamics  is  from  mechan- 
ics. 

"  Oh,  to  be  in  England 

Now  that  April's  there, 
And  whoever  wakes  in  England 

Sees,  some  morning,  unaware. 
That  the  lowest  boughs  and  the  brush-wood  sheaf 
Round  the  elm-tree  bole  are  in  tiny  leaf, 
While  the  chaffinch  sings  on  the  orchard  bough 
In  England — now  ! 

"  And  after  April,  when  May  follows, 

And  the  whitethroat  builds,  and  all  the  swallows  ! 

Hark,  where  my  blossomed  pear-tree  in  the  hedge 

Leans  to  the  field  and  scatters  on  the  clover 
Blossoms    and    dewdrops — at    the    bent   spray's 
edge  — 


Of  Recent  English  Poetry  203 

That's  the  wise  thrush;  he  sings  each  song 
twice  over, 
Lest  you  should  think  he  never  could  recapture 
The  first  fine  careless  rapture!  " 

Both  Tennyson  and  Browning — proph- 
ets because  poets — uttered  much  of  the 
philosophy  of  evolution  and  showed  many 
of  its  modes  of  interpreting  nature  before 
the  evolutionists  had  even  found  a  name. 
Browning's  dramatic  vigour,  his  pene- 
trative light  discovering  and  portraying 
the  significance  of  forces  here  and  there 
flashing  out,  his  all-defying  songfulness 
when  mere  things  would  clash  and  he 
must  wait  for  the  "  C  major  of  this  life," 
and  willingly  "  try  to  sleep  " — these  come 
from  his  glad  discernment  of  a  man-ward 
up-going  in  and  through  nature — a  move- 
ment for  whose  progress  he  often  gives  a 
shout  and  always  has  a  song.  He  knows 
how  nature  has  trembled  with  her  load 
and  by  what  a  sacrificial  route  man 
comes.  So  he  is  not  offended  in  Him 
who  incarnates  all  law,  saying  as  He 
comes  near  to  Calvary :  "  My  Father 
worketh  hitherto  and  I  work." 

"  Oh,  long  ago 
The  brow  was  twitched,  the  tremulous  lids  astir, 


204  '^^^  Higher  Ministries 

The    peaceful    mouth    disturbed;    half    uttered 

speech 
Ruffled  the  lip,  and  then  the  teeth  were  set, 
The  breath  drawn  sharp,  the  strong  right-hand 

clenched  stronger, 
As  it  would  pluck  a  lion  by  the  jaw ; 
The  glorious  creature  laughed  out  even  in  sleep  !  " 

No  less  an  expositor  than  Mr.  Stopford 
Brooke  has  pointed  out  what  appears  to 
him  as  the  deficiency  of  Tennyson's  love 
and  appreciation  of  nature.  He  says : 
"  His  natural  world  is  not  of  itself  alive  ; 
nor  has  it  anything  to  do  with  us  of  its 
own  accord.  It  is  beautiful  and  sublime  : 
we  can  feel  for  it  admiration  or  awe ;  but 
it  sends  nothing  of  itself  to  us.  It  is  the 
world  of  the  imaginative  scientific  man 
who  has  an  eye  for  beauty  and  a  heart  to 
feel  it."  Browning's  natural  world  is  the 
world  of  a  philosopher  who  goes  beneath 
the  achievements  of  science. 

In  any  event,  if  this  is  true  of  Tenny- 
son, we  may  say  more  of  Browning,  in 
another  direction.  There  may  be  little 
in  nature  for  the  poet,  unless  man  is  by 
her  side,  or  by  his  side,  when  Tennyson 
considers  nature ;  there  is  less  in  nature 
for  Browning,  unless  she  herself  at  her 


Of  Recent  English  Poetry  205 

best  is  man's  history  rather  than  his  pic- 
ture-gallery. She  is  also  his  servant  more 
than  his  mistress.  He  must  learn  the 
higher  things  from  man  and  the  highest 
from  God  in  man — from  the  Incarnation. 

"  Round  the  cape  of  a  sudden  came  the  sea, 
And  the  sun  looked  over  the  mountain's 

rim : 
And  straight  was  a  path  of  gold  for  him, 
And  the  need  of  a  world  of  men  for  me.'* 

So  nature  is  to  him  like  a  living  ped- 
estal out  of  which  the  statue  has  grown  ; 
and  nature  cannot  reveal  any  greatness 
or  loveliness  without  creating  a  demand 
for  a  noble  figure — for  man  all-glorious, 
above  her  as  well  as  of  her.  As  Brown- 
ing surveys  both  nature  and  man,  the 
richer  the  way  man  came,  the  richer  must 
man  be,  having  thus  come  within  the 
range  of  the  vision  of  this  poet  and 
philosopher.  Man's  very  body  is  nascent 
with  divine  and  upspringing  potencies, 
and  his  soul  lives  in  the  indwelling  God  : 

"Rejoice  we  are  allied 
To  that  which  doth  provide 
And  not  partake,  effect  and  not  receive  I 


2o6  The  Higher  Ministries 

A  spark  disturbs  our  clod  ; 
Nearer  we  hold  of  God 

Who  gives,  than  of  His  tribes  that  take,  I 
must  believe. 

"  Then,  welcome  each  rebuff 
That  turns  earth's  smoothness  rough, 

Each  sting  that  bids  nor  sit  nor  stand  but  go  ! 
Be  our  joys  three-parts  pain  ! 
Strive,  and  hold  cheap  the  strain ; 

Learn,  nor  account   the  pang;    dare,  never 
grudge  the  throe ! 

**  For  thence, — a  paradox 
Which  comforts  while  it  mocks, — 

Shall  life  succeed  in  that  it  seems  to  fail : 
What  I  aspired  to  be. 
And  was  not,  comforts  me  : 

A  brute  I  might  have  been,  but  would  not 
sink  i'  the  scale." 


No  scepticism  with  its  learned  manners, 
however  arrogant  in  the  arid  realms  of 
pedantry,  can  resist  the  fine  invasions  of 
a  faith  like  this,  at  once  so  scholarly  and 
uplifting.  Browning's  warmth  is  gener- 
ated at  the  same  dynamic  source  which 
produces  his  Hght.  This  is  well  exempli- 
fied in  his  poems :  '*  Christmas  Eve  and 
Easter   Day."     The  Gottingen  professor 


Of  Recent  English  Poetry  207 

out-Arnolds  Mr.  Matthew  Arnold  in  the 
cool,  if  not  frigid  manner,  yet  patronizing 
and  ghostly  enough,  as  he  also  treats  of 
the  "  mythical  character  of  Christ  and 
Christ's  religion."  He  has  no  great  tasks 
beating  in  his  blood  and  demanding  more 
than  this  shadow  of  a  faith.  To  him  the 
Christian  vision  does  not  upbear  a  man  ; 
man  bears  it  up  as  he  does  most  of  his 
so-called  consolations.  There  is  fine  irony 
in  Browning's  words  addressed  to  this 
theologic  or  neologic  speaker  who  has 
just  broken  "  into  his  Christmas  Eve's 
discourse."  Many  a  minister  may  learn 
much,  here,  of  the  completer  statement  of 
much  with  which  a  bumptious  parishioner 
may  be  only  stammering ;  and  he  will 
learn  more  of  the  manner  of  meeting  it. 
Browning  shows  the  good  humour  such 
an  one  must  possess  in  dealing  with  one 
who  has  this  burden  upon  him.  He  says 
to  the  professor : 

"  Go  on,  you  shall  no  more  move  my  gravity 
Than,  when  I  see  boys  ride  a-cock  horse, 
I  find  it  in  my  heart  to  embarrass  them 
By  hinting  that  their  stick's  a  mock  horse. 
And  they  really  carry  what  they  say  carries 
them:' 


2o8  The  Higher  Ministries 

We  cannot  help  following  the  eager 
steps  of  such  earnest  humanity  as  Brown- 
ing depicts,  from  the  close  chapel  so  un- 
aesthetic  and  crowded  with  unintellectual 
humanity  to  Rome's  St.  Peter's  with  its 
grandeur  and  worse  superstitions.  But  no 
superstition,  however,  is  so  vacuous  as  the 
"exhausted  air-bell  of  the  critic"  in  the 
lecture-hall  where  the  spectacled  professor 
makes  small  dust  of  the  "  Christ-myth." 

The  soul  of  man  is  still  "  incurably 
religious."  God  and  nature  have  not 
been  destroyed.  But  what  of  nature? 
Why  shall  w^e  "  consider  the  lilies,  how 
they  grow,"  if  there  is  nothing  in  this  suc- 
cess of  man's  having  kept  a  respect  for 
the  soul,  which  has  been  all  the  while  ut- 
tering its  inner  appeal  for  the  reality 
which  he  finds  in  Christ  alone,  and  break- 
ing down  the  arrogant  fortress  of  nega- 
tions recommended  by  the  Gottingen 
professor?  Light  is  not  found  in  the 
unctiousness  of  this  ardent  orthodoxy,  we 
admit ;  but  let  us  go  out  from  its  hot  and 
thick  air,  not  merely  to  get  a  clean  breath, 
but  to  get  the  healthful  rhythm  of  nature  in 
our  blood  !  They  who  go  with  Browning 
will  see  better ;  they  do  see  better.     They 


Of  Recent  English  Poetry  209 

see  nature,  according  to  this  nobler  man- 
ner of  true  science — a  manner  not  sup- 
plied by  the  Gottingen  professor.  They 
see  nature  both  as  truth  and  loveliness. 
But  we  must  go  deeper  than  science  into 
the  very  spirit  which  informs  and  rules ; 
and  this  Browning  has  done,  leaving  us 
a  universe  where  the  head  is  taught  and 
the  heart  is  charmed.  Browning  will  al- 
ways teach  men  how  accurately  one  may 
deal  in  laboratories  with  a  globule  of 
hydrogen  and  oxygen,  chemically  consti- 
tuted, and  how  scientifically  one  may  also 
think  about  such  a  physical  fact  as  a 
moon,  and  yet  how  a  lunar  rainbow  may 
live  and  tremble  with  something  greater 
far  ;  for 

"  Suddenly 
The  rain  and  the  wind  ceased,  and  the  sky 
Received  at  once  the  full  fruition 
Of  the  moon's  consummate  apparition. 
The  black  barricade  was  riven. 
Ruined  beneath  her  feet,  and  driven 
Deep  into  the  West ;  while  bare  and  breathless. 

North  and  South  and  East  and  West  lay  ready 
For  a  glorious  thing  that,  dauntless,  deathless, 

Sprang  across  them  and  stood  steady. 
'Twas  a  moon-rainbow,  vast  and  perfect, 


210  The  Higher  Ministries 

From  heaven  to  heaven  extending,  perfect 
As  the  mother  moon's  self,  full  in  face. 
It  rose,  distinctly  at  the  base 

With  its  seven  proper  colours  chorded, 
Which  still,  in  the  rising,  were  compressed, 
Until  at  last  they  coalesced, 

And  supreme  the  spectral  creature  lorded 
In  triumph  of  whitest  white, — 
Above  which  intervened  the  night. 

But  far  above  the  night,  too,  like  only  the  next, 
The  second  of  a  wondrous  sequence, 
Reaching  in  rare  and  rarer  frequence. 

Till  the  heaven  of  heavens  were  circumflexed, 
Another  rainbow  rose,  a  mightier, 
A  fainter,  flushier,  and  flightier, — 
Rapture  dying  along  its  verge. 
O  whose  foot  shall  I  see  emerge. 
Whose,  from  the  straining  topmost  dark, 
On  to  the  key-stone  of  that  arc  ? 

He  was  there. 

He  Himself,  with  His  human  air." 

In  Browning's  experience  with  life  and 
truth  which  is  the  substance  of  his  poetry, 
Tnan — and  Browning  furnishes  man  with 
brain,  heart,  will  and  voice — simply  breaks 
through  assumption,  tears  away  disguises, 
because  he  is  so  deadly  in  earnest  as  to 
right  and  wrong ;  and  so,  it  is  also  in 


Of  Recent  English  Poetry  21 1 

man's  desolating  presence  that  self-suf- 
ficient rationalism  falls  into  painted  rags ; 
and  it  is  likewise  in  man's  self-respecting 
grasp  that  Love's  hand  finds  a  human 
need  holding  to  it  with  desperation  of 
destiny. 

"  He  was  there, — 
He  Himself  with  His  human  air  !  " 

In  "  Christmas  Eve  "  love  is  constantly 
asserting  her  province,  and  what  the  in- 
tellect of  the  Gottingen  professor  misses, 
the  weary  soul  keeps,  by  its  grasp  upon 
that  garment,  by  the  vision  of  that  face 
seen  through  love  : 

"Love  was  the  starting  thing,  the  new; 
Love  was  the  all-sufficient,  too; 
And  seeing  that,  you  see  the  rest. 
As  the  babe  can  find  its  mother's  breast 
As  well  in  darkness  as  in  light ; 
Love  shut  our  eyes  and  all  seemed  light." 

On  the  other  hand,  there  is  no  finer 
picture  of  the  narrowing  process  of 
rationalism,  of  how  unreasoning  reason 
is,  if  she  walks  alone.  Browning  sees 
the  "  exhausted  air-bell  of  the  Critic." 
The  atmosphere  may  be  bad  where  what 


212  The  Higher  Ministries 

we  name  superstition  reigns,  in  that  dis- 
senter-chapel, but 

"  The  critic  leaves  no  air  to  poison ; 
Pumps  out  with  ruthless  ingenuity 
Atom  by  atom, — and  leaves  you — vacuity." 


There  are  many  such  examples  of  the 
conduct  of  our  modern  rationalist  in  the 
pages  of  this  poet,  but  perhaps  there 
is  none  whose  intellectual  prepossession 
and  critical  analysis  so  dash  themselves 
to  pieces  before  our  eyes,  in  their  effort 
to  discover  the  meanings  of  that  which 
is  too  great  and  too  personal  for  such  a 
method  of  appreciation.  But  at  length 
the  true  rationalism  comes.  The  verses 
which  follow  these  which  I  have  quoted, 
in  which  the  Spectator  muses  on  what  he 
has  heard,  are  very  strong  indeed. 
Position  after  position  must  yield  and 
does  yield,  as  the  same  reason  which 
has  been  stimulated  into  activity  goes 
into  the  rationalist's  view  of  Christ. 
Inch  after  inch  is  given  up  to  the  deeper 
reasoning  which  at  last  makes  its  proof 
that  Christ  is  not  an  affair  of  abstract  rea- 
soning at  all,  but  an  affair  of  personal  life. 


Of  Recent  English  Poetry  213 

For  Arnold  is  right,  even  in  the  matter  of 
finding  true  faith  :  "  Conduct  is  three- 
fourths^of  life,"  and  Browning  sings  : 

"  My  fact  is, 
'Tis  one  thing  to  know  and  another  to  practice 
And  thence  I  conclude  that  the  real  God-function 
Is  to  furnish  a  motive  and  injunction 
For  practicing  what  we  know  already. 
And  such  an  injunction  and  such  a  motive 
As  the  God  in  Christ,  do  you  waive  and  *  heady, 
High-minded,'  hang  your  tablet-votive 
Outside  the  fane  on  a  finger-post  ? 
Morality  to  the  uttermost 
Supreme  in  Christ,  as  we  all  confess, 
Why  need  we  prove  would  avail  no  jot 
To  make  him  God,  if  God  he  were  not  ? 
Where  is  the  point  where  himself  lays  stress? 
Does  the  precept  run — *  Believe  in  good, 
In  justice,  truth,  now  understood 
For  the  first  time '  ? — or,  '  Believe  in  me, 
Who  lived  and  died,  yet  essentially 
Am  Lord  of  Life '  ?     Whoever  can  take 
The  same  to  his  heart,  and  for  mere  love's  sake 
Conceive  of  the  iove — that  man  obtains 
A  new  truth  ;  no  conviction  gains 
Of  an  old  one  only,  made  intense 
By  a  fresh  appeal  to  his  faded  sense." 

Once  let  us  get  hold  of  God's  idea  of 
man,   whether   we  obtain  that   estimate 


214  "^^^  Higher  Ministries 

and  plan  through  nature,  which  is  God's 
studio  apparently  littered  about  with 
broken  bits  of  marble  and  many  tools,  yet 
the  place  where  man  was  fashioned ;  or 
through  the  blood  of  crucifixion,  the 
altar-pain  of  ages,  the  cross  of  Calvary, 
— once,  I  say,  let  our  pulpits  gain  this 
divine  valuation  of  man  and  the  reasons 
for  such  valuation,  and  then  appeal  may 
be  made  to  man  as  God's  child,  who  has 
"  the  geometry  of  the  City  of  God  "  in  his 
brain  and  heart.  This  interior  congeries 
of  potencies  and  prophecies  within  man's 
personality  will  create  havoc  when  it  has 
such  a  voice  as  Browning  gives  to  human 
nature,  as  it  stands  to  answer  falsity  of 
any  sort.  Often  it  need  not  speak  at  all. 
The  better  and  more  eloquent  the  state- 
ment of  anything  less  than  the  whole 
truth  as  to  man,  his  intuitions,  conscience 
and  hope,  the  more  certainly  it  tumbles 
to  pieces  or  shows  its  deadl)^  incomplete- 
ness in  the  presence  of  man's  soul  claim- 
ing itself  and  its  destiny. 

Take  such  a  poem  as  "  Cleon,"  and  you 
will  see  at  once  what  the  Paganism  which 
made  possible  our  use  of  a  materialistic 
philosophy  which  has  so  splendid  a  singer 


Of  Recent  English  Poetry  215 

as  Swinburne,  may  do  and  may  not  do 
with  the  human  spirit's  insistent  needs. 
Cleon  resists  the  new  revelation  and  is  a 
child  of  the  past.  We  are  back  in  the 
time  before  Christianity  had  made  for 
the  world  a  new  atmosphere ;  we  are 
where  human  thought  and  hope  are  too 
large  for  the  old  beliefs,  and  where,  as 
yet,  faith  has  no  reality  to  which  she  can 
look.  Suddenly  we  step  into  the  atmos- 
phere of  St.  Paul, — a  light !  but  the  dark- 
ness comprehendeth  it  not,  though  Paul 
has  just  quoted  from  Aratus :  "  For  in 
Him  we  live  and  move  and  have  our  be- 
ing " — and  we  see  instantly  that  the  light 
does  comprehend  the  darkness.  Higher 
and  higher,  as  the  pagan  thinks  of  it, 
does  life  rise  in  its  keen  demands — de- 
mands all  so  sure  of  disappointment,  un- 
til it  seems  quite  impossible  that  it  should 
not  reach  its  aching  hand  of  developed 
need  through  the  gloom  and  take  hold  of 
a  life  beyond.  Yet  that  ache  and  the 
guess  which  half  denies  itself  are  the 
best  the  Pagan  knows.     He  cries  out : 

"Every  day  my  sense  of  joy 
Grows  more  acute,  my  soul  intensified 


2i6  The  Higher  Ministries 

By  power  and  insights  more  enlarged,  more  keen  ; 

While  every  day  my  hairs  fall  more  and  more, 

My  hand  shakes,  and  the  weary  years  increase  — 

The  horror  quickening  still  from  year  to  year. 

The  consummation  coming  past  escape. 

When  I  shall  know  the  most,  and  yet  least  enjoy  — 

When  all  my  works  wherein  I  prove  my  worth, 

Being  present  still  to  mock  me  in  men's  mouths, 

Alive  still,  in  the  phrase  of  such  as  thou, 

I,  the  feeling,  thinking,  acting  man, 

The  man  who  loved  his  life  so  over-much, 

Shall  sleep  in  my  urn.     It  is  so  horrible, 

/  dare  at  times  imagine  to  my  need 

Some  future  state  revealed  to  us  by  Zeus, 

Unlimited  in  capability 

For  joy,  as  this  is  in  desire  for  joy, 

— To  seek  which,  the  joy -hunger  forces  us : 

That,  stung  by  straitness  of  our  life,  made  strait, 

On  purpose  to  make  prized  the  life  at  large  — 

Freed  by  the  throbbing  impulse  we  call  death. 

We  burst  there  as  the  wonn  into  the  fly. 

Who,  while  a  worm  still,  wants  his  wings.     But 

no  ! 
Zeus  has  not  yet  revealed  it ;  and  alas, 
He  must  have  done  so,  were  it  possible. 


Thou  canst  not  think  a  mere  barbarian  Jew, 
As  Paulus  proves  to  be,  one  circumcised. 
Hath  access  to  a  secret  shut  from  us  ? 
Thou  wrongest  our  philosophy,  O  King." 


Of  Recent  English  Poetry  217 

Cleon  has  stated  his  longing  too  man- 
fully, too  fairly,  to  carry  us  with  his  prej- 
udice and  doubt.  Here  is  a  man,  indeed, 
— that  constantly  authoritative  being,  at 
least  with  himself  when  he  reasons  in  any 
manner  whatsoever, — and  the  person  who 
emerges  out  of  the  controversy  inside  the 
Pagan  is  not  Cleon  who  complains  of  the 
fate  of  a  philosophy  which  is  more  to  him 
than  he  is  to  himself,  as  he  says  : 

**  Thou  wrongest  our  philosophy,  oh,  King," — 

the  man  who  emerges  is  the  man  in  Cleon 
who  is  more  than  any  of  man's  philoso- 
phies,— the  man  who  is  still  heard  say- 
ing: 

"  I  dare  at  times  imagine  to  my  need, 
Some  future  state." 

With  this  same  man  in  us  all,  in  the 
doubter  and  in  the  one  who  has  shame- 
fully sinned  without  at  all  doubting  de- 
liberately, we  take  another  step.  Matthew 
Arnold  never  so  relied  on  conduct  to  clear 
up  one's  faith,  as  does  Browning.  If 
Browning  can  persuade  one  to  do  a  great 
thing,  one  must  come  from  it,  believing 
greatly.     Here  is  the  appeal  to  history, 


2i8  The  Higher  Ministries 

in  man's  case  with  himself.  Emerson 
says  :  "Of  immortality  the  soul,  when 
well  employed,  is  incurious.  It  is  so  well 
that  it  is  sure  it  will  be  well." 

"  What  is  excellent, 
As  God  lives,  is  permanent." 

To  these  well-employed,  Robert  Brown- 
ing will  come  with  a  reasonable  faith  in 
the  life  to  come.  He  will  so  build  them 
up  with  the  immortalities  of  truth  and 
love  that  they  will  have  an  eye  for  im- 
mortality. He  will  so  infuse  into  their 
life  and  thought  and  spirit,  a  movement 
of  hope  that  it  will  be  reason  enough. 
"  We  are  saved  by  hope."  Indeed,  there 
is  no  other  hope  for  the  intellectual  man 
than  the  faith,  not  of  the  intellect  alone, 
but  of  the  will  which  does  the  immortal 
truth  and  right  in  every  act,  and  of  the 
heart  which  feels  it  in  its  love.  Strongest 
of  all  singers  does  Browning  seem  when 
this  faith  fills  his  soul : 

"  Fear  death  ? — to  feel  the  fog  in  my  throat, 

The  mist  in  my  face, 
When  the  snows  begin,  and  the  blasts  denote 

I  am  nearing  the  place. 


Of  Recent  English  Poetry  219 

The  power  of  the  night,  the  press  of  the  storm, 

The  post  of  the  foe  ; 
Where  he  stands,  the  Arch-Fear,  in  a  visible  form, 

Yet  the  strong  man  must  go  ; 
For  the  journey  is  done  and  the  summit  attained, 

And  the  barriers  fall. 
Though   a   battle   to   fight   ere   the  guerdon  be 
gained, 

The  reward  of  it  all, — 
I  was  ever  a  fighter ;  so — one  fight  more 

The  best  and  the  last ! 
I  would  hate  that  death  bandaged  my  eyes  and 
forbore 

And  bade  me  creep  past. 
No  :  let   me  taste  the  whole  of  it,  fare  like  my 
peers. 

The  heroes  of  old, 
Bear  the  brunt ;  in  a  minute  pay  glad  life's  ar- 
rears 

Of  pain,  darkness  and  cold. 
For  sudden  the  worst  turns  the  best  to  the  brave. 

The  black  minute's  at  end. 
And  the  elements  rage,  the  fiend-voices  that  rave 

Shall  dwindle,  shall  blend. 
Shall  change,  shall  become  first  a  peace,  out  of 
pain. 

Then  a  light,  then  thy  breast, 
O  thou  soul  of  my  soul  1  I  shall  clasp  thee  again, 

And  with  God  be  the  rest  !  " 

"The  heart,"  says  Pascal,  "  has  reasons 


220  The  Higher  Ministries 

which  the  reason  cannot  know,"  and  it  is 
the  reason  of  both  the  heart  when  its 
love  finds  out  the  sweetness  of  something 
loved  by  loving  it,  and  that  of  the  will 
when  it  realizes  the  strength  of  something 
which  its  purpose  has  taken  into  itself  by 
acting  it, — these  are  the  reasons  which 
Mr.  Browning  proposes  that  our  rational- 
ism should  accept  along  with  the  reasons 
of  the  intellect.  Then  we  have  the  power 
of  the  heart's  reason  for  immortality — a 
Love  looks  out  upon  the  future — and  we 
feel  what  a  gain  comes  to  the  whole  life. 
So  Love  continually  reveals.  It  is  all  so 
reasonable,  too.  God  is  Love.  Christ  is 
the  Incarnate  Love  of  God  for  man  as 
well  as  the  incarnation  of  man's  upward- 
looking  love  for  God.  Calvary  is  the 
spot  where  that  Love  opened  its  blood- 
red  glory  of  sacrificial  power.  Is  it 
strange  that  the  intellect  should  need 
Love's  revelations  wherewith  to  under- 
stand these  divine  things?  Of  course, 
Love  has  its  wise  agnosticism  which 
Browning  recognizes — it  has  a  mystic 
quality  from  which  he  does  not  try  to 
free  it. 

Perhaps  never  in  the  history  of  religion 


Of  Recent  English  Poetry  221 

and  poetry,  as  these  have  found  a  mutual 
interest  to  defend  or  a  common  throne  of 
influence  to  assert,  has  any  singer  come 
more  close  to  portraying  perfectly  the  os- 
cilation  of  the  soul  of  a  man  (more  than 
the  sceptic,  or  the  physician)  between  faith 
and  doubt,  than  has  Browning  in  his 
"  Karshish,  the  Arab  Physician."  This 
first-century  Oriental  practitioner  is  on  his 
holiday.  He  is  spending  some  days  in 
the  interesting  country  of  Jesus  and 
Lazarus.  Every  element  of  the  subtle  and 
contented  scepticism  of  dreamy  ages 
resists  the  appeal  which,  because  Karshish 
is  a  man,  is  made  to  him  by  the  story  of 
Lazarus,  his  death  and  Christ's  power  at 
his  grave  to  renew  his  life,  as  Karshish 
now  sees  it.  The  distinguished  leech's 
pride  as  a  leech  matches  the  leech's  in- 
terest in  his  profession  and  in  his  friend 
Abib.  Seeing  to  it  that  no  fact  shall  be 
missed  by  either  of  them,  yet  these  collide 
in  his  experience  with  this  perplexing  case. 
The  letter  he  writes  attests  his  careful 
studiousness.  He  has  found  many  gums 
and  herbs  and  made  many  observations 
as  to  diseases  of  which  he  writes  to  his 
master-physician  Abib  ;  and  this  case  of 


222  The  Higher  Ministries 

"  mania  subinduced  by  epilepsy  "  must 
be  dealt  with  fairly.     He  writes : 

**  The  man, — it  is  one  Lazarus  a  Jew, 
Sanguine,  proportioned,  fifty  years  of  age, 
The  body's  habit  wholly  laudable. 
As  much  indeed  beyond  the  common  health 
As  he  were  made  and  put  aside  to  show." 

He  cannot  find  any  other  equation  for 
all  the  quantities,  save  this — it  is  a  case 
of  one  restored  from  epilepsy.  Is  this  a 
complete  diagnosis  ?  For  a  physician, 
yes  ;  for  a  man,  scarcely.  Lazarus  im- 
parts to  Karshish  something  of  his  own 
intensity  of  mind.  Jerusalem  is  trembling 
with  revolution,  but  the  case  here  is  of 
more  importance.  Perplexity  and  a  set- 
tled bigotry — these  form  the  cloud  against 
which  play  the  wonder  and  the  feeling  of 
the  man,  Karshish  :  "  /  wish  it  could  be 
so^^ — is  a  feeling  which  Christianity  has 
found  at  every  point  of  man's  hope.  It  has 
been  met  in  Christ  who  is  always  saying 
to  our  power  and  tendency  to  believe  the 
best :  "  If  it  were  not  so,  I  would  have 
told  your  But  Karshish  has  only  this  to 
say  and  to  say  it  twice  :  "  It  is  stratige^ 
Once  he  cradles  the  tiny  life  of  his  "  will 


Of  Recent  English  Poetry  223 

to  believe  "  in  the  soft  folds  of  his  wonder, 
as  we  all  must  cradle  our  faith  in  wonder, 
and  he  writes  again  ; 

*♦  This  man  so  cured  regards  the  curer  then 
As — God  forgive  me — who  but  God  Himself, 
Creator  and  Sustainer  of  the  world, 
That  came  and  dwelt  in  flesh  on  it  awhile  ! 
— Sayeth  that  such  an  One  was  born  and  lived, 
Taught,  healed  the  sick,  broke  bread   at   his 

own  house. 
Then  died,  with  Lazarus  by,  for  aught  I  know, 
And  yet  was  .  .  .  what  I  said  nor  choose  re- 
peat. 
And  must  have  so  avouched  Himself  in  fact, 
In  hearing  of  this  very  Lazarus, 
Who  saith — but  why  all  this  of  what  he  saith  ? 
Why  write  of  trivial  matters,  things  of  price 
Calling  every  moment  for  remark  ? 
I  noticed  on  the  margin  of  a  pool 
Blue-flowering  borage,  the  Aleppo  sort 
Aboundeth  very  nitrous.     It  is  strange. ^^ 

The  man  still  oscillates  like  a  pendulum 
between  the  faith  which  nearly  captures 
him  and  holds  him,  because  a  real  man 
must  believe  high  things  which  are  ac- 
cordant with  his  high  destiny, — between 
this  faith  and  the  doubt  that  buries  the 
man's  mind  enswathed  in  a  theory  about 


224  The  Higher  Ministries 

great  facts.  It  is  shallow  grave,  indeed,  for 
no  man  can  bury  himself  to  his  own  satis- 
faction. At  last,  and  once  more  his  "  will 
to  believe  "  nearly  conquers,  and  he  writes 
in  that  doubt  of  his  doubt  which  is  so 
near  to  faith  : 

"  The  very  God  !    Think,  Abib ;  dost  thou  think  ? 
So  the  All-great  were  the  All-loving,  too  — 
So,  through  the  thunder  comes  a  human  voice, 
Saying,  '  O  heart  I  made,  a  heart  beats  here  ! 
Face,  my  hands  fashioned,  see  it  in  Myself, 
Thou  hast  no  power  nor   may'st   conceive  of 

Mine; 
But  love  I  gave  thee,  with  Myself  to  love. 
And  thou  must  love  Me  who  have  died  for  thee.' 
The  madman  saith  He  said  so :    /'/  is  strange." 

Is  it  as  strange^  after  ally  when  ojie  lives 
with  Christ,  as  that  it  cannot  be  true  ? 
Scepticism  is  more  credulous  than  faith, 
oftentimes. 

Man — God's  child — man,  the  believer, 
the  lover  and  the  doer  of  God's  will  is 
victorious  over  all,  in  Mr.  Browning's 
philosophy.  He  triumphs  even  over  the 
"  aber-glaube "  and  the  mannerisms,  the 
superstitions  and  assumptions  which  grow 
like  parasites  upon  the  burdened  form  of 
faith.    Bishop  Blougram  with  his  sophistry, 


Of  Recent  English  Poetry  225 

the  papal  ambassador  with  his  pietistic 
craft,  the  Church  functionary  ordering 
his  tomb  at  St.  Praxed's  with  a  turn  for 
Latinity,  conceit  and  sensuality, — all  these 
go  down  with  the  Gottingen  professor, 
before  the  face  of  man  looking  to  God  in 
Christ.  Christ  is  man's  way  to  God,  be- 
cause evermore  He  was,  is  and  shall  be 
God's  way  to  man.  At  length — and  this 
is  but  a  sketch  of  Browning's  thought 
presented  as  strongly  in  as  many  other 
poems  which  I  cannot  even  mention — the 
philosophy  of  our  poet  makes  us  rich  with 
his  noblest  gift,  "The  Ring  and  the  Book  " 
— that  annal  of  the  soul  where  Sinai  thun- 
ders and  flames,  until  we  hasten  from  the 
terror  thereof  and  flee  towards  Calvary. 
The  theology  of  "The  Ring  and  the 
Book"  is  scriptural ;  it  is  also  both  human 
and  divine.  It  is  an  antidote  to  all  super- 
ficial notions  of  sin  ;  and  the  hideous  por- 
trait of  iniquity  it  presents,  in  loathsome 
record  or  self-confession,  demonstrates  the 
goodness  and  severity  of  God  in  con- 
science. Every  character  in  the  poem 
should  be  known  in  every  minister's 
study,  else  some  day  the  minister  shall 
fail   to  hear  God's  voice  in  man.     As  a 


226  The  Higher  Ministries 

study  in  clinical  psychology,  it  has  no 
equal  for  dreadful  spiritual  self-illumina- 
tion, since  Dante  and  Shakespeare.  A 
sinner  has  made  here  such  an  account  of 
himself,  that  the  pope,  lawyers,  victims, 
and  courts  only  give  their  slight  com- 
ment on  the  interior  disaster  we  behold. 
Guido  has  sinned  past  more  than  these, 
as  he  went  down.  He  must  swiftly  call 
upon  them  to  save,  when  the  mob  comes 
and  he  would  fain  return. 

"Who  are  these  you  have  let  descend  my  stair? 
Ha,  their  accursed  psahn  !     Lights  at  the  sill ! 
Is  it  '  Open '  they  dare  bid  you  ?     Treachery  ! 
Sirs,  have  I  spoken  one  word  all  the  while 
Out  of  the  world  of  words  I  had  to  say  ? 
Not  one  word  !     All  was  folly — I  laughed  and 

mocked ! 
Sirs,  my  first  true  word,  all  truth  and  no  lie, 
Is — save  me  notwithstanding  !     Life  is  all ! 
I  was  just  stark  mad, — let  the  madman  live 
Pressed  by  as  many  chains  as  you  please  pile  ! 
Don't  open  !    Hold  me  from  them  !    I  am  yours 
I  am  the  Granduke's — no,  I  am  the  Pope's  ! 
Abate,  — Cardinal, — Christ,  — Maria,  — God, 
Pompilia,  will  you  let  them  murder  me?" 

Pompilia?     Compared  with   God,  the 
Almighty,  who  is  Pompilia? — She  is,  as 


Of  Recent  English  Poetry  227 

Guido  sees,  greater  because  she  is  nearer 
to  him  than  God  Himself,  as  Guido  knows 
God ;  she  is  abler  to  save  Guido  now. 
But  the  order  of  these  persons  is  most 
suggestive  of  moral  values  in  the  mind. 
These — "Abate,  Cardinal,  Christ,  Maria, 
God, — Pompilia" — mark  the  stations  of 
moral  influence  past  which  he  went  to 
peril.  Now  these,  in  their  order^  must  be 
seen,  grasped  and  held,  if  the  sinner  be 
made  safe.  God  is  more  authoritative  and 
real  in  Pompilia,  than  in  His  own  far-o£f 
greatness.  What  a  cry  for  God  incarnate 
in  humanity  I  Always,  in  crises,  the  soul  of 
man  cries  out  for  a  human  manifestation 
of  God.  It  is  the  beleaguered  Saul  of 
Israel  again  crying :  "  Bring  me  up 
Samuel."  Whom  have  we  most  sinned 
against?  He  must  save  us.  Neither 
Pompilia  nor  Samuel  can  succour  Guido 
or  Saul  now.  God  has  been  sinned 
against — and  God  in  humanity. 

It  is  in  his  "  Saul "  that  Browning  rises 
to  such  a  faith  in  God's  Incarnate  Love, 
that  everything  which  man  at  his  best  has 
ever  dreamed  or  wished  of  God  is  caught 
and  held  for  adoration  within  a  thorn- 
crowned  man's  evangel.     God  becomes 


228  The  Higher  Ministries 

Christ  and  Christ  is  God ;  and  this  is  our 
poet's  faith — that  God  will  do  what  David 
at  his  noblest  would  do,  if  he  could. 
David  sings : 

«*  I  believe  it !     'Tis  Thou,  God,  that  givest,  'tis 

I  who  receive : 
In  the  first  is  the  last,  in  Thy  will  is  my  power 

to  believe. 
All's  one  gift :  Thou  canst  grant  it  moreover, 

as  prompt  to  my  prayer 
As  I  breathe  out  this  breath,  as  I  open  these  arms 

to  the  air. 
From  Thy  will  stream  the  worlds,  life  and  na- 
ture, Thy  dread  Sabaoth : 
/will  ? — the  mere  atoms  despise  me  !     Why  am 

I  not  loth 
To  look  that,  even  that  in  the  face  too  ?    Why 

is  it  I  dare 
Think  but  lightly  of  such  impuissance  ?    What 

stops  my  despair  ? 
This ; — 'tis  not  what  man  Does   which  exalts 

him,  but  what  man  Would  do ! 
See  the  King — I  would  help  him  but  cannot, 

the  wishes  fall  through. 
Could  I  wrestle  to  raise  him  from  sorrow,  grow 

poor  to  enrich, 
To  fill  up  his  life,  starve  my  own  out,  I  would 

— knowing  which, 
I  know  that  my  service  is  perfect.     Oh,  speak 

through  me  now ! 


Of  Recent  English  Poetry  229 

Would  I  suffer  for  him  that  I  love  ?     So  wouldst 

Thou — so  wilt  Thou  ! 
So  shall  crown  Thee  the  topmost,  ineffablest, 

uttermost  crown  — 
And  Thy  love  fill  infinitude  wholly,  nor  leave 

up  nor  down 
One  spot  for  the  creature  to  stand  in  !     It  is  by 

no  breath, 
Turn  of  eye,  wave  of  hand,  that  salvation  joins 

issue  with  death  ! 
As  Thy  Love  is  discovered  almighty,  almighty 

be  proved 
Thy  power,  that  exists  with  and  for  it,  of  being 

Beloved  ! 
He  who  did  most,  shall  bear  most ;  the  strong- 
est shall  stand  the  most  weak. 
'Tis  the  weakness  in  strength,  that  I  cry  for  ! 

my  flesh,  that  I  seek 
In  the  Godhead  !     I  seek  and  I  find  it.     O 

Saul,  it  shall  be 
A  Face  like  my  face  that  receives  thee ;  a  Man 

like  to  me. 
Thou  shalt  love  and  be  loved  by,  forever :  a 

Hand  like  this  hand 
Shall  throw  open  the  gates  of  new  life  to  thee  ! 

See  the  Christ  stand  !  " 

This  is  a  dauntless  and  divine  faith. 
It  involves  man's  essential  trust  in  God  ; 
it  involves  all  that  God  has  put  in  trust  in 
man.     The  autograph  of  Love  is  upon 


230  The  Higher  Ministries 

the  universe,  and  it  is  in  the  heart  and 
hope  of  humanity.  '■^  For  My  7iame^s 
sake,''  thus  He  hath  written  it. 

A  great  Personal  Fact  rises  and  re- 
mains before  the  consciousness  of  man- 
kind— a  living-  Christ,  at  once  the  mani- 
festation of  God  and  the  divine  illustra- 
tion of  man.  Truths  and  forces  celestial 
centre  themselves  there — let  no  human 
lips  seek  profanely  to  define  them  !  Ex- 
pect words  to  be  inadequate  — 

"  These  filthy  rags  of  speech,  this  coil 
Of  statement,  comment,  query  and  response, 
Tatters  all  too  contaminate  for  use. 
Have  no  renewing  ;  the  Truth,  is,  too, 
The  Word." 

So  Browning  is  the  poet  of  reverence. 
A  human  soul  survives  and  asserts  its 
personality  in  these  poems — a  soul  so  real 
and  so  true,  so  unswerving  by  native  vi- 
tality that  sin  at  last  must  somewhere  tell 
its  own  story — all  of  it ;  in  fevered  Guido's 
dream  so  honest  that  the  whole  past  is 
realized,  or  in  a  bower  where  Siebald 
cannot  crown  Ottima  "magnificent  in 
sin,"  since  Pippa  has  just  been  singing; 


Of  Recent  English  Poetry  231 

"  God's  in  His  Heaven, 
All's  right  with  the  World  "  ;— 

and  let  us  here  reflect  here  that  it  is  not 
God  in  nature  who  makes  that  proposed 
coronation  a  profanation  of  the  highest — ■ 
even  though  one  of  the  guilty  pair  says : 

"Buried  in  wood  we  lay,  you're  collect ; 
Swift  ran  the  searching  tempest  overhead ; 
And  ever  and  anon  some  bright  white  shaft 
Burned  through  the  pine-tree  roof,  here  burned 

and  there, 
As  if  God's  messenger  through  the  close  wood- 
screen 
Plunged  and  replunged  his  weapon  at  a  venture, 
Feeling  for  guilty  thee  and  me;  then  broke 
The  thunder  like  a  whole  sea  overhead  " — 

but  it  is  God  in  humanity — it  is  Pippa ; 
and  this  is  another  hint  of  the  moral  mo- 
tive-power which  can  come  only  in  the 
Incarnation  of  God  in  humanity. 

A  human  soul  survives  which  gathers 
up  the  wealth  of  ages  past  and  feels  that 
these  are  but  fragments  falling  from  the 
working  of  the  great  God — a  human  soul 
in  whose  future  the  greatest  forces  run  to 
assert  its  certainty  and  sublimity.  Every 
great  idea  of  our  time,  every  noble  feeling 


232  The  Higher  Ministries 

of  our  age,  which  we  have  seen  stimulated 
into  life  by  Wordsworth,  Shelley  and 
Coleridge,  examined  and  trecitcd  by  Ar- 
nold, made  musical  by  Tennyson,  falls 
into  harmony,  deep,  swift,  true,  in  Brown- 
ing's song.  With  an  honesty  lambent 
as  flame  is  pure  and  with  a  sureness 
of  aim  altogether  manly,  he  has  lifted  a 
rod  which  embodies  God's  purpose  and 
he  has  smitten  the  rocks  in  lonely  deserts 
and  found  their  treasured  fountains. 
Deeper  than  Arnold,  he  has  spoken  in  the 
midst  of  Arnold's  languor  and  chill,  and 
lifted  up  the  banner  of  intelligent  cour- 
age ;  even  richer  and  stronger  in  endow- 
ment than  TennysorL,  he  leads  the  race  to 
a  severer  discipline  and  a  firmer  posses- 
sion, often  bidding  us  leave  our  Handel 
and  listen  to  Beethoven.  I  know  of  no 
discovery  for  which  he  will  not  prepare 
the  soul — I  know  of  no  experience  for 
\vhich  his  lines  will  not  equip  the  minds 
of  modern  men.  A  broad  theology,  deep 
and  true  as  broad,  a  distinct  assertion  of 
the  place  of  the  individual  in  all  life  and 
destiny,  and  a  fatal  questioning  of  aged 
error  are  his ;  and  for  them  who  are  to 
lead  others  to  a  lasting  faith  his  muse  is 


of  Recent  English  Poetry  233 

teacher  and  friend.  For  the  spiritual  eye 
whose  vision  looks  beyond,  he  stands 
alone,  supreme.  Life's  defeats  to  all  who 
have  aspirations  greater  than  perform- 
ance— life's  struggles  to  all  who  let  the 
life  of  God  stir  within  them — life's  ulti- 
mate triumph  and  peace  to  man — these 
have  no  such  psalmist  as  he.  And  God 
at  last  shall  have  His  Victory,  for 

"  There  shall  never  be  one  lost  good  !  what  was 
shall  live  as  before, 
The  evil  is  null,  is  naught,  is  silence  imply- 
ing sound  ! 
What  was  good  shall  be  good,  with  for  evil  so 
much  good  more ; 
On  the  earth  the  broken  arcs,  in  the  heaven 
the  perfect  round. 

**  The  high  that  proved  too  high,  the  heroic  for 
earth  too  hard, 
The  passion  that  left  the  ground,  to  lose  itself 
in  the  sky. 
Are  music  sent  up  to  God  by  the  lover  and  the 
bard ; 
Enough  that  He  heard  it  once;  we  shall 
hear  it  by  and  by." 


THE  END 


NEW  EDITIONS 


Quiet  Talks  on  Service 

i6mo.   Cloth,   7SC  net.  S.  D.  GORDON 

As  a  third  volume  in  a  series  of  "Quiet  Talks"  upon 
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ready  welcome  from  the  hundreds  of  thousands  who  have 
read  and  re-read,  either  in  their  original  form  or  in  their 
many  translations,  "Quiet  Talks  on  Power"  and  "Quiet 
Talks  on  Prayer,"  the  earlier  works  by  Mr.  Gordon.  The 
sequence^  of  "power,"  "prayer"  and  "service"  suggests  the 
possibilities  of  this  trinity  of  spiritual   forces. 

By  the  author  of  Quiet  Talks  on  Power  and  Prayer  and 
Service. 

The  Transfiguration  of  Christ 

i2mo.  Cloth,  $1.00  net.  FRANK  W.  GUNSAULUS 

Dealing  with  the  deeper  truths  embodied  in  the  crisis 
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to  follow  a  ray  of  truth  straight  to  the  spot  of  human  life 
that   it   best  illuminates. 

My  Spiritual  Autobiography, 

or  How  I  Discovered  the  Unselfishness  of  God. 

HANNAH  WHITALL  SMITH 

Vtw  Edition.     12mo,  Cloth,  $1.00  net. 

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Foretokens  of  Immortality 

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the  clods  of  the  open  grave  to  the  wide  expanse  of  sunlight, 
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Interior. 

Loyalty :  The  Soul  of  Religion 

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New  Life  in  the  Old  Prayer  Meeting 

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How  to  Conduct  a  Sunday  School 

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thirteen   years  labor  of  twenty  great  scholars. 

"Put  into  the  language  that  we  speak  every  day — plain 
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There  are  at  least  ten  periodicals  published — chiefly  in  France 
— for  the  propagation  of  the  new  language." — Chicago  Record' 
Herald, 


ESSAYS.  ADDRESSES,  ETC. 


The  Supreme  Conquest  f^:L^,^Tn':ZZl 

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To  the  list  of  great  preachers  who  have  made  the 
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The  Empire  of  Love 

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Life  That  Follows  Life 

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The  Marks  of  a  Man 

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The  Eternal  in  Man 

i2mo.  Cloth,  $1.00  net.  JAMES  I.  VANCE 

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promise. 


FOR  THE  CHRISTIAN  LIFE 


The  Simple  Things  of  the  Christian  Life 

i6mo.   Cloth,   50c   net.  Q.  CAMPBELL  MORGAN 

As  indicated  by  the  title,  the  author  here  deals  with 
commonplace  experiences.  The  New  Birth,  Holiness,  Growth, 
Work,  Temptation.  Hut  by  no  means  commonplace  is  the 
treatment  of  the  themes.  In  that  lucid  and  convincing  style 
of  which  he  is  master,  the  author  charms  as  he  instructs  and 
inspires. 


Anecdotes  and  Illustrations 

w  R.  A.  TORREY 

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This  collection  of  stories,  drawn  largely  from  the  wide  and 
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eflective  ministry  of  his  powerful  addresses. 


The  Listening  Heart 

'    i2mo.  Cloth,  $1.00  net.  JOHN  A.  KERN 

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The  Second  Coming  of  Christ 

i6mo,  Cloth,  soc  net.  LEN  Q.  BROUGHTON 


PASTORAL  PROBLEMS 


An  Efficient  Church 

With   an   introduction   by  Bishop   Earl    OaiTStCn,   IXi.   D., 
i2mo,  Cloth,  $1.25  net.  CARL  QREQG  DONEY 

This  book  is  one  of  the  first  fruits  of  the  science  of 
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questioning  of  a  great  number  of  students,  laymen  and 
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■works  with  the  clear,  fearless  spirit  of  the  trained  mind. 
He  opens  up  the  pathway  to  methods  of  working  and  teach- 
ing in  the  modern  religious  congregation  that  will  upset 
some  old  ideals,  but  cannot  fail  to  give  every  alert  religious 
worker  a  fresh  inspiration  and  a  new  hope. 

Preacher  Problems  °' "^'^TeTher't  Su  work. 

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There  is  very  much  about  the  actual  operation  of  a  pro- 
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and  even  after  much  experience  the  minister  will  find  him- 
self confronting  a  situation  for  which  he  has  no  data  to 
guide  him.  This  book  is  an  adviser  for  the  minister  young 
or  old;  advice  from  a  long  experience  and  guided  by  the 
sanest  spirit.  The  author's  fifty-years  experience  as  author, 
editor,  instructor  and  pastor,  gives  his  conclusions  great  value 

The  Doctrine  of  the  Ministry: 

Outlines  based  on  Luthaidt  and  Krauth. 
i2mo,  Cloth,  7SC  net.  REVERE  FRANKLIN  WEIDNER 

This  work  is  the  result  and  growth  of  twenty-five  years 
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Luthardt's  presentation  it  is  much  more  than  a  translation, 
as  Luthardt  does  not  devote  more  than  ten  pages  in  his 
works  to  this  theme,  and  Krauth  would  not  cover  a  score  of 
papers.  Dr.  Weidner,  President  of  the  Chicago  Lutheran 
Beminary,  may  therefore  well   claim   full  authorship. 


THE  SUNDAY  SCHOOL 


The  Modern  Sunday  School  in  Principle 

and    Practice     ^''  ^°  Modprn  school  and  us  Educational 

i2mo,   Cloth,   $1.00   net.  HENRY  F.  COPE 

By  the  General  Secretary  of,  the  Religious  Education 
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So  clear  and  simple  is  his  presentation,  that  this  book  will 
be  a  revelation  to  many. 


BIBLE  STUDY  HELPS.  ETC. 


Angus-Green  Cyclopedic  Handbook  of 

the    Bible       t^'-^   LowPrUid  Potutar  Edition 

An  introduction  to  the  study  of  the  Scriptures  by  the 
late  Joseph  Angus,  M.  A.,  M.  l3.  Thoroughly  revised  and 
in  part  rewritten  by  Samuel  G.  Green,  D.D.   Cloth,  $1.50  net. 

Useful  for  all  Bible  students,  it  is  invaluable  for  the 
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questions  that  rise  in  the  class  as  to  the  books  of  the  Bible, 
the  different  versions,  the  geography,  history  and  customs 
of  Bible  times  and  Bible  characters.  More  comprehensive 
than  a  Bible  Dictionary;  it  will  prove  a  library  in  itself 
to  all  students  of  the   Bible. 

The  IVf  eSSi&h  :    a  study  in  tie  Gospel  o(  the  Kincdom. 

i2mo,  Cloth,  $1.25  net.  DAVID  McCONAUGHY 

In  two  parts.  I.  Aiminp  to  trace  the  outlines  of  the 
peerless  portrait  of  The  Messiah  as  depicted  by  Matthew. 
II.  A  series  of  devotional  meditations  adapted  for  the  "quiet 
hour,"  yet  intended  to  illustrate  a  method  simple  but  suf- 
ficient to  yield  substantial,  results  as  have  been  proven  prac- 
ticable among  busy  men  of  business  and  students  in  the 
schools. 


The  Heart  of  the  Gospel 

A  Popular  Exposition  of  the  Doctrine  of  the  Atonement. 

i2mo,  Cloth,  $1.25  net.  JAMES  M.  CAMPBELL 

The  power  in  the  book  is  its  clearness.  It  is  fr'-e  from 
tenninology  of  the  schools,  uses  the  language  of  the  peo- 
ple and  will  do  what  the  author  hopes  for  in  his  preface — 
"find  the  basis  for  the  new  evangel  which  is  to  bring  in 
the  new  evangelism  in  a  conception  of  the  Atonement  which 
is  at  once  vital,  reasonable  and  practicable." 

Tfl*»  Rifk1<»  Oltf'lin^rl         By  Its  Natural  Divisions,  for  Bible 

1  ne   DlDie  V^Umnea     students  and  Sunday  School  Teachers. 

Ninth  Edition,  Paper,  loc  net.  W.  J.  SEMELROTH 

That  portion  of  The  Compltie  h'ormal  Manual  containing  the  course 
on  the  Historical  Divisions,  containing  also  the  department  Book  by 
Books  and  Helps  for  Students  and  Classes. 


ESPERANTO 


Esperanto— A  First  Reader 

Flexible  Cloth,  25c  net.  CompUed  by  E.  A.  LAWRENCE 

Intended    for    those    who    are    beginning    the    study    of 
Esperanto. 


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